Today, I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday at my childhood home in Los Angeles. It was a significant birthday not simply because I am now adult enough to be rental-car worthy, but because it will most likely be the last birthday I will ever spend in the house where I grew up.
My grandparents' house has sold and we're in the process of tossing, packing and scavenging the various mementos collected over thirty-five years on St. Johnswood Drive. My mother has assigned me personal tasks: clean out my Barbie drawer, sort through my old baby clothes and take what I may want for a future offspring, sort through my old toys and board games and pick one or two to represent my childhood, etc...
And all along, as I do this, I keep on seeing this chart in my head where there are sets of twenty-five blocks and this set, labeled "childhood (natural and oddly extended)", is now so completed.
I was speaking with my aunt tonight and mentioned that "a whole lot of people have lived in the house at one point or another -- much more than the usual American family." My aunt agreed and then began the roll call: my grandparents, her and her first husband, my uncle and his first wife, my parents, my great-grandfather and me.
The apron strings in our family are made of barbed wire.
So, the task of packing up my belongings and saying goodbye to this house is a monumental task. To put in perspective the importance of this house, consider that I lived here from my birth to age thirteen. One house in thirteen years. From age thirteen to age twenty-five, I have lived in ten different homes in various Bay Area cities -- none of which I felt the same sense of home as I do with my grandparents' house.
And then, when I think that in less than three days I'm going to walk out of this house forever, I can't help but feel that weird feeling in my throat -- the one that comes from suppressed sobs.
Blah, blah, melodramatic poop.
If I was ever on Jeopardy!, my dream category would be "Things that make Mena cry." (With, of course, the $500 question: "What are dog food commercials with old dogs climbing stairs?")
But, back to the birthday. We moved up our trip to Los Angeles so we could celebrate my actual birthday at the house. I figured I deserved one last childhood regression. So, I gave in and let my mom do my hair, asked my grandmother to make one of my favorite meals (pork chops, dumplings, cabbage and noodles in butter and breaded cauliflower) and ate a rum cake from the Italian pastry shop that my family has been shopping from for years.
And then, I brought out the old photo albums. At this time, I realized (a bit too late) that I can be babied but can no longer be a baby.
And just when I think I'm going to end this with a "life's short and then you die," I force myself to come up with some sort of optimistic ending that says something about the great journey ahead:
I can rent cars now!
