Before times
I got access to the house on November 15th 2024. This is what it looked like. The pictures don't really convey the amount of old cig smoke and trash there was everywhere. I can still smell it.
The house in Matoaca was built around 1986 and people had been smoking inside for pretty much that entire time. I was born in 1987. 38 years of tobacco smoke coated the walls and ceilings. The kind of shit that really makes you want a cigarette, right? I remember in high school my grandma tried to implement a rule of no more cigarettes in the house. I think they lasted until winter then back inside they went.
“They” included my grandma, my cousin, my mom and her sister, and probably some other cousins too. My grandma seemed to have an open door policy that anyone could stay there if they needed to, which resulted in a rotating cast of relatives living with us for weeks to years. If someone just got released from jail, they’d pop up at the house. If my mom got mad at whatever boyfriend she was seeing and staying with, she’d also pop up.
I’m an only child and I was never fond of my family so I mostly tried to keep to myself. My room was the one with the blue concrete floor in the photos. After that I moved to the room with all the windows and the wicker couches. I did a lot of afterschool stuff like sports and theater so that I wouldn’t have to spend that time at home. I was genuinely interested in everything I did which was helpful.
I was president of the ecology club and the German club, which might sound prestigious but I don’t remember what I did while in those roles honestly. I played soccer from middle to high school about 4 years and learned that I loved being a goalie instead of running a lot. I had started out as a forward and slowly backed my way to defense.
Our soccer team was god awful. One year they didn’t even put our soccer teams group photos in the yearbook! Matoaca is a huge football school so of course we had the biology teacher and the English teacher coaching girls soccer and not doing a great job. One of the coaches was good at making comments about some of the girls losing weight though. He was mostly ignored but in retrospect, gross dude. You’re an adult male why are you commenting on teenage girls bodies? (Don’t answer that)
Back in those days, 1998-2000s, I would sit in my room and surf the internet. I remember getting a Packard Bell desktop computer for Christmas one year and I’m being completely serious when I say that it changed my life forever. Suddenly I was connected to the internet and a shit ton of information. My main interests at that age were Witchcraft, Dragonball Z and wrestling (WWF not WCW!) and I would download pictures of Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold for hours while I chatted in the WWF chat rooms.
My 1st screen name was “I LOVE DX”
This translated well to the wrestling chat rooms but I didn’t realize it also looks like
“I LOVE DICKS”
So when I went to any other chatroom I would immediately get made fun of. It didn’t take me long to realize I needed to make another screen name for my other hobbies, and I came up with SilvaMoon. SilverMoon was taken obviously.
I also made several websites featuring my poetry, one for DBZ fanfiction and one for Witchcraft. I still have the fan fiction, maybe I will post them sometime?
It’s a weird ass experience, what I just did. Cleaning out your childhood home and throwing everything away. I went through 3 dumpsters. Burned a lot of furniture. threw a lot of stuff out of windows because I got tired of dragging furniture pieces through the house after cutting them up with a sawzall. I had to make it easier to carry because I did the bulk of the work myself. Thankfully I also had a handful of friends come help for a day or two and for them I am ever so fucking grateful.
This is the house now, after almost 2 months of straight cleaning and throwing shit away! I did not end up painting the house myself thankfully.
It’s wild to look at these photos. I did a fair amount of crying while I was out there, especially at first. Throwing away what was left of my Grandmas belongings was rough. Throwing away old photos of myself was equally strange. I just made sure to take a photo of any photos I wanted to remember and then throw it away physically. It did get easier with time. For the first week I kept thinking “Oh well maybe I should donate this?” but then I realized I had to have an all or nothing mindset and just throw 99% of the shit away once and for all. I kept photos and a deviled egg plate and a few other random things but the rest of it went to the trash.
I ended up not being as sad as I anticipated, in the end. That house gave me hell in more ways than one during my lifetime and I am so happy someone else gets to take it and shape it and hopefully make some better memories in it. There were definitely good memories in that house and so I try to focus on those rather than the shitty ones. I’ll save those for therapy.