2:58pm
If I can recall correctly, this house that I live in now was built sometime in the late 70s. Possibly 1977, possibly later. I know that the house I used to live in was built in the early '80s, though I no longer have access to the documents listing the time it was built. The general areas themselves were built sometime between the late '70s up to the mid '90s, when construction began on areas around one of the freeways that led to the mass expansion of neighborhoods I'm so used to seeing today.
Anyway, I bring this up because in the numerous families who had lived here, whether it was the late 70s or the 90s, left their marks here and there in the house. There was a heigh measuring line in one of the closets in the upstairs rooms, marked as having been made in the early 2000's. It was painted over after we bought the house by the renovators that were hired, and I wish they hadn't done that. On the concrete in the yard, there are names drawn into the concrete, likely when parts of the house were being built. All kinds of interesting names, that are now fading away. I can barely read some of them now, but I know they're there.
Someone let their kid stick their hands in wet cement and wrote their names down in the pavement in front of the house. No date, but given how old the neighborhood is, it's easy to guesstimate when. There are other names scattered here and there, paw prints, dates. I sometimes like to circle around the house after I finish watering to see if I can find more traces of the old owners. With all those names, and the occasional mail we get from names we don't recognize, I assume that in the near almost 50 years since this house was built, no more than six families have lived here. Some of them seem to have kids, some don't.
It reminds me that my own mail probably still gets sent to the old address. Don't get me wrong, I've gone to the bank and reached out to the library and to my old university and had my address changed to this one, but I know I likely missed something down the line. The old house was in my family for thirty years. As long as I've been alive. Some nights I get so heated that we sold the house. And I'm forced to choke the anger down because my mother insists there's nothing to be done, and she's right. Until I figure out how to travel back in time, I have to sit and stew in my resenment.
Anyway. Lots of rain this weekend! I'm so happy, happiest when it's cold. From my angle, I can see the rainstorm moving farther away to Chihuahua. Hope they're prepared for all the flooding, half the city seemed to have sunk somehow during all the rain.