Dead-end street

I grew up in a Spanish colonial revival house. It was the very first house on the right-hand side of a dead-end street. I’d ride my scooter up and down and up and down. It felt a hundred miles long. My best friend at the time lived at the very end of it. That was practically days away, wasn’t it? Days away. I ran away to that neighbor’s house once, after getting upset with my parents about who knows what. I stormed out and down the street and didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I stayed at my friend’s house for hours, until my parents finally tracked me down. That was my idea of rebellion—run down the street, about eight houses away from my own.

I loved that street. I loved that house, with the tiny front yard, and the chain-link fence overgrown with trumpet vine. It made me feel like a character in a movie. I could run around outside all day without getting lost. We had fun neighbors who grilled for us sometimes, and cool neighbors who’d weld things in their driveways, and lesbian neighbors with a girl dog named Jeff. We had mysterious neighbors who lived in the closed-off house at the end of the street—left side, not the right—and never went outside, whose house my friends and I stayed away from because they probably did drugs or had booby-traps on their front gate.

And it always felt like summer on that little dead-end street. I still remember the address, in the same lilting tone I memorized it in at age six.

Monopoly

It was a good house. But it was a small house, too. And you can’t keep four people in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom house. Not forever.

When I was about ten, my parents broke the news to my brother and me that we were going to move. It didn’t really sink in. Maybe that’s because we didn’t have a where to yet, and when you’re ten you think home is home, and nowhere else could be like that.

But I was quickly distracted, swept up in the repainting and the redecorating and the countless trips to IKEA. I’d roam through the showrooms and pretend I was jumping through different dimensions.

My brother and I had a bunk bed back then. When the time came to repaint our crummy old room, pretty much everything was whisked away into storage or some place. All that remained was the bunk bed, dragged into the middle of the room and wrapped in translucent tarps, like an island in the middle of an endless sea. The eye of the storm.

I had the bottom bunk. My brother and I would climb under the paint tarp and sit on my mattress, the air smelling tartly of paint. Mom was very clear—don’t touch the walls. Sam and I spread out the Monopoly board, and we played all day in that little plastic cave. It was stuffy and sweaty, about a thousand degrees in the California summer heat. But still. It was our Batcave. Our secret gaming room. Didn’t matter that the Monopoly money would spill, and the pieces would slide off the board, whenever one of us shifted on the mattress.

VBS

That same summer, while my parents were dealing with realtors and painting and prepping, my brother and I went off to VBS. I think this was our second year of VBS; the last time, on the last day, we all belted along to the Phineas and Ferb theme song. I knew all the words. I still do.

I loved that VBS, even though I’m pretty sure I only went twice. I loved the people, loved the rocking out in the morning to fun songs, loved the crafts and the games and the prizes. I still remember the sanctuary at that church. The big stage, the rows of pews. One day, all the big kids showed up halfway through lunch all covered in…blood? No, not blood. Food dye. They’d had a water balloon fight with dyed water. Lucky. I couldn’t wait to be a big kid too. Then I could be in the plays and the fights.

But on one of the final days of VBS, it was also our final day at our house. Mom picked us up early, I think. And on the drive back to our little Spanish colonial revival house—first on the right-hand side of a dead-end street—it started to sink in.

This is the last time.

I stared out the window at the slow-zooming city traffic. I was on the left side of the car—I was always on the left, it was my side. Butterflies started to dance in my stomach. I clutched my backpack to my chest a little tighter.

This is the last time.

It was quiet in the house when we got there.

It felt so big and empty—If it’s really this big, can’t we stay? It was almost alien, like labs in space movies. So cold and white with the newly painted walls. It’s like the light drifting in through the big living room window turned white when it came through the glass, and I could still smell the paint in the air.

The floor seemed to creak as I walked through the rooms. I was alone, suddenly. Alone in a huge castle, robbed of all the furniture, robbed of all the kings and queens. I sat in my empty bedroom, clad in my VBS T-shirt and my berry-colored backpack. I sat with my back against the wall and cried.

Oh, how a space can feel like a friend.

I didn’t want to leave.

I didn’t want to go back to VBS and pretend like I was ok.

The unknown wasn’t what scared me back then. Sure, we didn’t have a new house yet. A time of couch-surfing and storage units was ahead of us—I knew that. But it didn’t bother me as much as the fact that I’d spent my whole life in that house, and that some day I will have spent more time than that in some other place. Some different house, on some different street.

For some reason, that scared me.

I’m not very good at goodbyes.

Final summer

That feeling of loss soon passed. I enjoyed the adventure of couch surfing. I felt like Bilbo Baggins, or one of the Pevensies. In one of the houses we stayed at, I made my mom watch The Pirate Fairy with me. The adventure captured my own, at heart—out of your element, but embracing the change.

A few months later, we found a place. I love that place. I miss it, now that I’m away in Ohio.

The house I have in Cambridge is good too. It’s comfy and cozy, and it’s been a blessing to live here. Yes, I miss my room back home. But this is home too, now. I guess growing up is realizing that home is a lot of places, not just one.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on my couch, enjoying my summer break.

And it hit me.

This is the last time.

I turned to my housemate. “This is my last summer break,” I said. “My last one! Ever!” Once school was done…that would be it.

It made me a bit melancholy. I’m only 22—how many lasts are you supposed to have at 22? Sometimes I feel like I have too many. I’ve had so many “last conversations” with childhood friends without realizing it. People fall out of the world, sometimes. Fall out of touch, out of frame. Lovers aren’t the only people who fall out of love, you know—and I’ve never been in love, in the typical sense, but I think it hurts just as bad to fall out of non-romantic love. Different, maybe. But still painful. Especially when it happens off-screen, with no fanfare and no messy aftermath. Just the slow, quiet fade-out, like an 80s rock song.

I did musical theater for a long time. I had a last day of theater rehearsal without knowing it, too. Our show was canceled during COVID—I never really got one last goodbye. Sure, I saw my friends around. The occasional party, the odd game night. But it’s not the same as a final bow. As a curtain call and a cast party.

I’ve had so many lasts without noticing.

So it was nice that I noticed, this time.

I had some schoolwork to get done over that break, but I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying it. I work at a little ice cream shop in a sleepy little town. I was there on the 4th of July, and just like that old dead-end street of mine, it made me feel like a movie character. I made banana splits for smiley regulars, blended Watermelon Squeezes and Raspberry Dazes. I had red-white-and-blue glitter on my face, and nails to match. I was at work, I know—with a long line of customers and a minimum wage—but it was good. It was a very summery way to spend my last summer. And I knew it.

Changing seasons

I don’t know what the future holds. I graduate in less than a month. I have some ideas, some targets to shoot for. But I feel like I’ve reached the end of the tape. There’s supposed to be more, right? But what is it? I don’t know.

It’s like I’m in that big empty house again, with the smell of paint and the squeaky hardwood floors. I’m leaving things behind, I know. I’m stepping into a new chapter.

But just like when I was ten, it wasn’t the end. The sadness will fade as the adventure begins, and I’ll find new places and new people and even new “lasts.”

And it will be good.

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