That window on the far left? That was my bedroom from the time I was 2 until I moved out at 19. There was one winter when the snow drifted all the way up to the bottom of that window - extremely unusual for the Seattle area. That is also the window I used to look out from for hours, waiting for my alcoholic father to make it home safely from whatever bar he was at that night.
That driveway? It's where I dropped and shattered an empty mayonnaise jar (I was catching bugs) when I was 8, then tried to pick up the shards of glass with my bare hands so I wouldn't get in trouble. I sliced open the side of my right hand. I still have the scar.
It's also where my dad, in a fit of drunken anger, threw his keys at me, splitting open my lip, because I had been talking to a guy on the airplane we had just been on. A guy who was old enough to be my father. My dad accused me of flirting with him and called me a slut (I was 14 - the guy was helping me with my calculus) right before saying, "I'll make sure you never think you're cute enough to do that again!"
17 years of my life, and as I sit here thinking about it, I can't come up with any great memories. In fact, it was a prison in many ways. There were some really terrible things that happened behind those walls, and as long as they stayed behind those walls, everyone thought we were the perfect family.
This house is full of secrets that no one ever saw or heard about.
17 years.
I hope the people who have lived there since have filled that house with enough laughter and joy to make up for the 17 years of on-again, off-again, terror that I experienced here.
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