Seeing red

I've lived in a lot of houses in my life. Some were big, some were small. Sometimes we were rich sometimes we were poor. I've never really had a home, but the houses that I lived in defined me in a way. I could still draw you a map of almost every one. I could still tell you what the sun looked like shining on the panel walls of the house where my first memories take place. I would like to think that years from now I will be able to tell you about the three bedroom apartment my fiance and I rent now. I got attached to these houses despite the sort amount of time I was in each one. I started to leave letters behind for the next person to own that house. I wonder now if anyone ever found a letter of mine. I wonder what I would write in the letters to my houses if I was looking back now.

Dear Green house,

I was eager to leave you, and for that I am sorry. You are the first place I can ever remember living. Sure, there was barely any room for the Christmas tree in the corner of your living room and maybe I did have to share a room with my big brother, but I'll tell you a secret. I love my brother, I loved him even back then. I love him almost as much as I love Christmas.

Love,

Robin 20 years later.

I think I was probably two the first time I remember peeking around the corner to see if Santa had come.

"he's here" Andy said "Do you see him? I see red."

My eyes widened as I looked closer. I didn't see shit. I was a toddler, and Andy might as well have been grown at seven years old. Why was I always the voice of reason?

"Look, right there" he pointed toward the Christmas tree. I squinted my eyes trying to see what he was seeing. Then I finally got it, Santa wasn't real. It was a game. It wasn't about a fat guy in a suit, it was about giving, and love and imagination. Okay, maybe at two I didn't get all that, but I did get that Andy didn't see any more than I did. Andy saw Santa because he wanted to.

"I see him" I said. "I see his red suit"

I spent two more Christmases in that house. I would wake up there, then walk across the street to my mom's parents house and then after that my dad would pick my up and bring me to visit his family.

My last Christmas there we were no longer alone. Mom had moved in her new boyfriend and his kids. There were two of them, Aaron and Lindsey. I had met his kids before, we had some of the same friends so I didn't mind if they took over our living room. I had quit a crush on Aaron in fact.

I remember that last Christmas well. Mom, Lindsey and I went to the toy store. We turned down this isle filled with stuffed bears. In my memory the shelves reached to the ceiling, and the isle went on for miles. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my short life. As an adult I think we were probably just at Kmart, but I would never tell little me that. To little me, we were in stuffed bear heaven.

"I want to buy my friend a bear" Lindsey said "will you help me pick one?"

What? I thought, her friend? what about me! I wanted a bear! I never got anything I wanted. Well screw her friend. Was getting her friend the ugliest bear I could find. So I search and searched until I found a grey bear. Grey is boring, no one likes grey. To make it worse his bow tie was plaid. I hated plaid. I was sure her friend would hate it, and it served her right.

I don't remember what I got that year for Christmas except for that stupid Grey bear, and I loved it. It didn't matter to me then that it was Grey or had a plaid bow tie, it was mine. 'Grey bear' as I so creatively named him, still sits in my bedroom with it's nose hanging off, and it's fur ratty from my sleeping with it every night. It was the first and best Christmas gift my big sister ever gave me.

We moved out of that house the summer that I turned four. It was too small for four kids and two parents, and mom said that it wasn't safe to live there anymore. A few months later I stood on the hill across the street and watched the city tare down the green house along with the houses on either side of it. The lots where the three houses once stood were bought by the church behind it. Now, they use the area to play games and even to park on crowded days, but when I drive past that empty lot around Christmas time I'm pretty sure I still see Santa.