Childhood for sale

Marion has been my best friend since junior high, and her dad's house is for sale. It's proving more emotional for me than if my own parents were selling their house. I can only imagine how she feels.

In this house, all our friends gathered...
We played Darn, chugged more soda and ate more pizza than I care to remember, watched silly movies and horror flicks.
Marion and I watched Schindler's list for the first time, together, knowing we'd need the support. I haven't seen it since.
We complained about our teachers and school work.
We were awoken in the morning after sleepovers by Marion's dad announcing one of our parents had arrived to end our togetherness.
We videotaped a Valentine's Day music video - my two best friends and I competing for the affections of the camera to The Cardigans' "Lovefool" - and sent it off to Scott, away at college.
We planned and brought to fruition countless school projects - as many as possible in the form of plays and movies.
We held party after party. One Halloween, we haunted several rooms of the house - open to the public.
We played video games. We played truth or dare. We played games of our own creation.
I drank my first alcohol, a gin and tonic.
We spent every Independence Day lighting fireworks in the front driveway.
We tended the fireplace, pet cats on our laps, and stayed up all night talking about our fears, our dreams, our futures.

And then our dreams and futures started to happen. We now ranted and raved about our professors and strategized how to earn a living on our own. Marion hosted my bridal shower and Eliana's baby shower in the living room and backyard. Her dad - a towering Marine colonel I had met when I was twelve - told me I should call him Philip. (I still can't.) My own children ran through the parklike backyard with abandon. We talked about Marion's acting career instead of her acting aspirations, about PhD programs, about entrepreuneurship. We drank fine wine at the behest of the colonel at night, and made and finished breakfast before he awoke in the morning.

The house is officially on the market now. The saddest part is that every other home that has sold in the area recently has been torn down and the large lot used to create a mega-mansion estate. This is a truly beautiful, Old World style home; our hope is that its charm will make someone fall in love with it and maintain its original design. Otherwise, the setting of our memories will become only a memory.