The Last Trip Home
PART ONE: THE DEAR OLD HOUSE THAT I GREW UP IN My parents are in the process of selling their house, so over Easter I went down to the Gold Coast to help move around some furniture, pick up the boxes of spare books I had stored there, and make some executive decisions about stuff like old books/games/toys that were shoved into the wardrobe of my old bedroom and never really looked at after I left. When we were done, my mother mentioned that it may well be the last time I ever visit them there. At the time, I didn’t think that was a big deal. We moved into the house when I was twelve. I’d moved out by the time I was twenty-two. I’ve spent two thirds of my life living in places that were not that house. For the last third of my life, it’s actually been in a city I like, as opposed to my thoroughly