PEOPLE SAY YOU can't go home again - and they're right.
Three years after leaving Boston, we went back for a visit. While having dinner with our former next door neighbors, we took a long, lingering look at our former home.We remembered that on moving day we left it clean and immaculate - but it didn't look that way any more.
The lawn was dying, the coveted raspberry bushes had been yanked out of the yard, the decorative bushes in front had disappeared, and the house had fallen into general disrepair.
We resisted the temptation to ask permission of the new owners for a walkthrough of the house, fearful that what we might find inside would be more depressing.
Although it was a surprising sight, it made us less sentimental about our past. It was easier for us to accept the fact that we no longer lived there. Any evidence of our preferences and style had left, and the new residents had made it theirs.
Yesterday, I reached even farther into the past. I drove to the first apartment Marti and I rented after we got married - a one-bedroom walk-up in Sugar House, 200 yards from a grocery store.
We used to walk to the store and push the cart all the way home.
A new, fresh yellow brick building then - almost 30 years ago - it was an exciting place to be. It helped to symbolize our new life together.
When we went there following the reception on our wedding night, we found our friends had managed to beat us there. They persuaded the owner to let them inside so they could leave playful, decorative symbols of their visit.
I was so sure they would be back that during the night I leaped out of bed several times and ran into the living room every time I heard a noise.
To make things worse, the floor was remarkably creaky. For several weeks we thought we heard the people next door walking somewhere inside in our apartment. Even with its flaws, it seemed like a nice place.
Life was hard then, because we were both going to school and had virtually no money. But I loved the place, because it was our home.
When I visited yesterday, I found a dilapidated building, noticeably worse for wear, with no evidence of loving care.
The lawn was overgrown. The stairway and landing leading to our former front door were badly rusted and in need of shoring up. The concrete walk was mottled, and the screen doors were all falling off.
I didn't have the nerve to ring the bell.
The store behind it had changed hands. All the houses surrounding it were 30 years older and looked it. The neighborhood had slipped, all right.
But as I walked around it, a flood of pleasant memories came rushing back.
I can't go back and check out the home where I grew up because it isn't there any more. When my parents died, we sold the property, and the new owners built several condos on it.
I do occasionally drive by and look at the two huge paradise trees in front, the only tangible legacy of my childhood on 2000 East. My dad hated them, because they grew wildly in all directions and deposited powerful seedlings throughout the lawn.
So it's true. You can't go home again.
Either it won't be the same or it won't be there at all. You just have to appreciate the house you live in right now - because you love the people in it and because it has your unique stamp all over it.