Refresh. Regrow. Renew.

The house was old but new to us. I hated it with a wild fury. Our old house was nothing fancy but its where I learned to climb a tree, to ride a bike, how snow felt, how to sneak out, to get drunk without letting anyone know it and many other skills that don't need mentioning. It was a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice people. It was close to the river where I would escape my mother. This new blue house was not in a neighborhood, it was right off a highway and across from a bar. There were no nice people. It was much bigger which gave my mom more space to pretend to sort through and organize all of her moth eaten valuables given to her by her crazy mother who wouldn't get rid of it either. The house came with a bigger yard for all of our animals which meant that I would have more grass to cut on those hot Texas days. Our only neighbors were the sheep from a nearby farm and the speeding cars that seemed to laugh as they drove by. If you were to get an Aeriel view, the blue house would resemble the letter L. The largest room in the house was the loft room which we filled with maze of useless junk. The maze twisted and turned eventually spitting us out to the bathroom or to the stairs leading up to the loft. That was the short part of the L. The remainder of the house was one long hallway of rooms. The entry room. The living room. The laundry room. The kitchen. The dining room. This room was strange; perhaps it was an afterthought in the mind of a lunatic. It had a storm door with three stairs leading down to the mismatched linoleum, an out of place yet elegant chandelier with one door leading to the back yard and another door leading out to the carport. There were also ugly sliding glass windows that opened to the kitchen. Next came the bedrooms. Nothing remarkable until the last room of the house. This is the master bedroom with stairs that lead down to the closets and a puke green bathroom. The ceilings were ridiculously short in this room especially the shower where claustrophobia would overwhelm the bravest of people. This became my room.

Our first night in our big, blue house was memorable to say the least. Mom was asleep in the living area in a sleeping bag on the floor. Next to her was the laundry room door with a mattress leaning against it. She has always slept on the couch, never in her room. Now she reduced herself to a sleeping bag. I stopped asking why. All six of our grumpy cats are in the laundry room. My younger sister is decorating her room while listening to The New Kids On The Block. They apparently have the right stuff for my sister. Their faces litter her walls which turns the bile in my stomach everytime I walk by. This first night I am in the hallway by my sister's room since she has the only air conditioner in this part of the house and I am being disobedient. The night before I was caught in a compromising situation with my boyfriend and was forbidden to talk to him. Naturally, I call him as soon as mom falls asleep. Queen Toni was purring quietly nearby when BOOM! I look up to see that the mattress where my mom is sleeping has turned orange with flames and the laundry room door is barely hanging on its hinges. I am shocked to see that my mom is still asleep. I run over to her, shake her so hard I feel as though she will break. Finally she wakes up, sees the fire and leaps to attention. She attends the fire and I run to my sister who is in shock. I grab her arm and my cat while running to the door. We jump in the car and drive it up to the road away from our house. We sit in our car watching the firefighters work. My sister is hysterically screaming for the New Kids. Our crap house is on fire, flying cats were shot out of the laundry room and are possibly dead or dying, our mom is running around like a headless chicken and my sister is screaming for a stupid boy band. (I would say music group but that's just needless flattery). I am calmly petting my cat watching the blazing fire fighting to survive.

The fire is contained before spreading to the rest of the house and eventually we find all of our cats, singed but undamaged. Sadly, the house was rebuilt and we remained to suffer. I eventually moved to Oklahoma and my mom bought a house. I drive by the blue house whenever I visit my mom and I always think back to this night and how truly funny it was.