Quiet, but not always was it quiet. A home, the place I call home and lonely, yet the only home. The house that sits right next to the city elementary school. It was once a lively street, a very lively street filled with children far and wide, and each one unique and different than every other. But time passed, people changed, and everyone seemed to just grow up. Each newfound teenager left what they used to call home, to find themselves. And to find their new home, leaving me alone in an empty house.

Once brown, but a newly painted beige color, was the home, my home. Satisfactory size, with quite a beautiful garden to accompany it. It used to be known as the fun house. The one with all the goods. The swingset, the basketball hoop, you name it. Every kid would come running out their front door from the houses that lined the street, to come play along with me and my brother. Moving closer and closer, faster with every step as they were on their way towards the pleasant scent of Indian cooking. Soon arrived, with nothing but happy faces. Smiling as we swung back and forth on the suspended pendulum, watching the eldest boys play basketball.

But eventually, one by one, they stopped coming. Years began to pass, until each and every one of them was gone. Poof! Gone all of a sudden like they were never even there. And left me, in what used to once be the “fun house.” Alone, and sure my parents are always around, but it is different. Completely different. No parent would ever look forward to swinging back and forth on the swing set out back. It would put them in their past. Although childhood is a happy place to think about, if one thinks about it too much they will begin to miss it. Miss it more than life.

No parent is going to want to just toss around a basketball for the fun of it. Play in the mud for the fun of it. Or even roll down the beautiful, grassy covered, hill that we used to sled down in the backyard.

My mother, father and I, we stay our distance. Although very close at heart, we keep our space. We are alone, or at least I feel alone. But it is still my home, the only home ever known to me. Lonely or not, I feel safe. A house is different than a home. The beige house with white linings on Halburton Road, is not just any house. It is my home. My safe place. What was once my place of happiness. A place I will never forget. And yes my home, it is part of me. It defines a huge part of my identity, that I shall never lose whether it be the same as before or not. Although the house changes, I change too. Time brings change. My home has taught me that the only constant in life is myself. But rather than myself, change is the only constant. It has made my identity.

As a young girl my parents were quite new to the United States. They filled the house, with many trinkets and emblems of their past in India. They might not realize this, but I sure did. Trinkets of my culture. Trinkets that I would play with. Trinkets and emblems that built a cultural part of me. But as the years passed by, once again things changed. With time comes change, is all I thought to myself. all I still think to myself. Change you don’t always want. And those little bits and pieces of culture, were removed. Remodels, plans, ways to make our house more adaptive of the American culture. I’ve gotten used to it, and have learned to love it. But, I still miss it. I will always miss it. And as if sensing my loneliness my grandparents began to stay at my house more often. But as my teenage years arrived I started to leave my home behind. My lonely home. Although forever, my safe home.