In my life, I’ve lived in approximately 11 different residences, most of them apartments, although that’s probably not relevant. When I think back to all the places I’ve lived previously, I don’t think fondly of them. That’s not to say that I have no positive memories of any place I’ve lived. It’s just that overall, I find myself thinking, “Man, am I glad I don’t live there anymore – this is so much better!” I’ve felt like this all my life with every move, almost as if I think the grass is always greener on MY side.
Now, I suppose it’s possible that I really have been so incredibly fortunate in life that ever single move I’ve made has been for the better. But it seems far more likely that my brain is somehow confounding memories and emotion to make me content with wherever I happen to be living at the time.
I’m not even sure any of that made sense, but if it did, does anywhere else share this experience?
I’ve always been happy that I HAD a place to live, particularly in the old days when money was tight. I’ve gone from bad to worse on occasion, but I’ve never gone “viaduct dweller” so I consider myself pretty fortunate. I’m a home owner now. It has it’s ups and downs, but it’s ours!
I’m about half and half. I don’t miss any of my apartments, really (although one or two stand out as kinda cool places to live). I’ve owned four houses.
Of them:
The first I don’t miss at all. Very much “starter home” and although an OK house, there’s nothing much to miss
The second I have a lot of good memories of. A lot of stuff went on in my life when I lived there, I lived there alone for a long time, and it felt right. I was sad to leave it when the time came.
The third house was one I didn’t like to begin with, but grew to like it a little more. The only thing I miss about it was that it was pretty nice for the money.
My current house I love love love. It truly is a “dream house” and I think if I ever move I’ll miss it quite a bit.
This is much on my mind, lately, becaue my mother is selling the house I grew up in.
I guess I can’t say that I’ll miss it that much, although I feel that I should. Part of it is that I myself haven’t lived there in so long, and every time I come back for a visit it’s different. My bedroom was repurposed eons ago. Other rooms have been rewallpapered and refurnished. My favorite climbing tree was radically pruned years ago. The barn next door was burned down in a firefighter’s excercise (!) which has completely changed the way the yard looks. The neighbor kids have of course grown up and moved out. Farms have disappeared. New houses have gone up. I feel like much of what I would miss about the house is already gone. And I have all my memories of living there, and selling it won’t take those away.
After leaving home, I’ve lived in a succession of student-ghetto apartments. No tears shed for those, I can tell you. I can’t wait to get a real grown-up house, with actual grown-up non-garage-sale furniture, walls we can paint any color we like, major appliances we can actually fix or replace when they aren’t functioning properly, a vegetable garden and a compost heap . . . sigh
Every move has been for the better, but not because it’s been a better space, but it’s been a better place in my life.
Right now, I like my house, but I want to move because my neighbors are certifiably nuts. The stories I could tell about these people. They have taken away all the pleasure I used to have in that house, and so as much as I like it, I really, really want to move to get away from them. So I do anticipate that my next house will be much better, because it will be miles away from those people.
I think this is what I was trying to spit out initially, and that really nails it on the head for me. The moves I made with my mom early on in life signified moving increasingly farther from bad neighborhoods I grew up in. Then, living on my own signified a sort of freedom for me, followed by moving into an apartment with my soon-to-be-wife, and finally us moving into a home, albeit a rental.
Hopefully, I can hold onto that streak and the next move will be home ownership for us.
The only house I ever had any emotional attachment to is the one my parents are in the process of selling right now. My brother, father, and I built the place over a period of several months after work and on weekends. I invested a good bit of time, effort, and money in the place. I never lived there, but I’m still sorry to see it passing out of the family.
The only move “down” I think is when I moved out of my folks house, into a bug-infested apartment on the southwest side of Chicago with the Future Bus Wife.
After that we’ve moved into nicer places each time and I feel the same as the OP.
This summer, I mooved out of that house that my parents bought in '61. Dad’s been gone since 1992, and my mom moved to Tuscon in 2001. It never felt like “ours”, just like a fairly nice place with a LOAD of family history attached.
In 1968, my parents sold the house that I had grown up in and moved further out west in Houston, off of Memorial Drive. The new house was really nice, but it was never home.
About once a year, I make a “pilgrimage” back to the old neighborhood. I drive around, look at the changes and eventually wind up back in front of my old house for a few minutes. I don’t know how many times it’s changed hands since then, and it has been covered with a hideous blue siding and turned into a two-story duplex, but it’s still there.
And I sit there and remember things like playing in the sprinkler in the front yard, and putting up Christmas decorations, and the various cats and collies that lived with us, and my next door neighbors, and the wonderful day when my first love came up to my bedroom and rocked my world, and the forts I used to build in the back yard, and tons of other stuff. And then I drive away for another year.
“There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed, some forever, not for better, some have gone and some remain.” - J. Lennon & P. McCartney
There are periods of my life that I miss, but not many places. My favorite apartment was in my least favorite city I’ve lived in (Albany, GA), while one of my favorite places to live (Milledgeville, GA- yes, really) was a nightmare when it came to housing. There are places I have some passive nostalgia for but it’s really only people and animals that I miss.