Rediscovering My Childhood Memories in Georgetown

When you’re growing up you remember certain things about your childhood. Particularly great holidays, bad sibling fights, and where you lived. For our family, where we lived changed fairly often. When we left California and moved to South Carolina, we lived in one house for quite a while then moved to another. Once my parents got divorced we lived in several others. While visiting Georgetown on my last trip, my sister and I couldn’t help but wonder what all of those old houses looked like in retrospect.

The beginning

The house we could remember most were the first two we ever lived in when we moved to Georgetown. A now run downed single wide trailer not far from my great grandmother’s house. I have the most memories of my childhood in that house. I remember our swing set, running away to our Nana’s house when we would get mad at our parents, and playing in the woods. I remember finding beetle skins and thinking they were fascinating. I remember moving a big log to find a huge king snake and hauling ass away. I remember getting a new bike with streamers for my fourth birthday.

This house is where my parents held massive Halloween parties which I believe sparked my love for Halloween honestly. I remember the ghosts that would dance around in our living room and scare the living hell out of me. I remember all the haunted things and activities that would happen in that house and how I was scared most of the time. This was house number one.

Once I started school I quickly became good friends with a couple of girls. One of them, in particular, was named Laura. We did everything together including girl scouts which my mother became a leader of. She was one of my best friends at the time then came the news that she was moving. I was so upset as we only got to spend a small amount of time together. In the end, my parents ended up buying her house.

Our Beloved Brick Home

We moved in, made it our own, and cherished all the new space we had. We even had our own huge playroom! I remember having girl scout events and pool parties riddled with ice cream all summer. I quickly grew to love my new house and all the joys of the neighborhood. I remember my sister and I made friends with two girls, Melissa and Melanie. Our moms got along great and we all spent tons of time together.

It didn’t take long before things started to go sour with my parents, however. I remember the constant fighting between them. I remember my father pulling our his assault rifles and threatening to kill my mother and/or himself multiple times. I remember him getting furious with us and making us stand with our hands straight out in front of us which felt like hours.

One night, in particular, I remember my parents were having a party. After some beers and winding down of the night, I walked into a conjoined bathroom next to my parent’s room. I opened the door to find my mother crying and my dad forcing himself on her. I didn’t understand what was going on at the time but I knew something wasn’t right. I remember fights escalating even more until one night when my mom was pregnant with my 2nd sister and my father shoved her. I don’t remember if she fell or what exactly happened but I remember the cops coming and questioning everyone.

After 10 years of marriage, from what I believe, my parents finally got divorced but unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of their story. Not by a long shot.

After the Divorce

I don’t remember my mom working when we were little so I’m not sure if she ever did. After my parents got divorced I do remember her working however, my dad obviously made more money at the time. My dad moved into a nicer condo and bought us an N64 which we quickly became obsessed with. My mom, who had the majority of custody, moved us into a few different places. The timeline of them I don’t remember all too correctly but I do remember the houses.

We moved into a small brick duplex apartment looking building. I don’t remember us staying there too long but I do remember jumping on the trampoline outside a lot. I remember getting a Betty Boop cake for my birthday which I loved! I remember my mom making cabbage soup all of the time(gross) and my sister Lacey’s baby bottles everywhere.

After a while, we settled in a run down trailer in a trailer hood. The houses were packed side by side down a rocky path. The house was infested with cockroaches everywhere which probably explains my fear of them now. I remember you would turn on the lights and they would scatter everywhere. Nothing was safe to use due to roach droppings so you always had to wash it. I remember my mom dating this guy named Timothy that Lacey was obsessed with. He would buy her gummy bears all of the time and I remember him giving me a Britney Spears CD once.

I remember eating Burger King all of the time and loving it. I remember having a babysitter that lived a couple houses down named Felicia who we despised. She was mean and we were terrible kids to watch. I remember one day someone walked down the hallway by the washing machine and their foot fell through the floor to the ground. I remember placing a board over it because that’s all we could do at the time.

I remember I made friends with a girl named Monique and she showed us this creek behind her house. I remember the creek lead to a large pond that we use to sneak into to swim. I remember her mom didn’t like us at all. She literally despised us. Eventually, we found out that our beloved pond was actually a sewer hole full of disease essentially. How we all survived without aids is a miracle.

The Last House

Before long we had made our way out of that hell hole into our last house in South Carolina. This house became my next favorite due to the friends we made and the location of the neighborhood. We quickly adjusted and I remember spending hours upon hours outside at the playground or under the trees staring at the moss and the sky. I could lay there all day. There was water just down the road from us though we never dared to enter because of the current. My sister made friends with an elderly lady not far from our house and use to visit her almost daily.

One day after getting back from my dad’s house I remember my mother wouldn’t let us go to our rooms. It turned out that she had packed up the entire house while we were gone in preparation for us to leave the state. This story goes on much longer from here but to make this post shorter, we left the next morning and wasn’t brought back from 6 months.

Revisiting the Houses

The first house looked the same from the outside but I’m sure it has to be trashed now. I was very young when we lived there so that’s over 25 years old. I didn’t get a picture of it but I’d love to share one with you all one day. House number two was filled with people when we drove by. We were going rather slow so everyone inside was watching us but we didn’t care. I was tempted to even go up and ask them if we could look around.

The third house we couldn’t locate based off memory though we tried. The fourth house was magically still sitting in the trailer park in one piece. Seriously, I don’t know how that thing is still viable. Getting a photo was difficult since they are lined up on angles. The last house was exactly where we remembered. We peaked in the windows as no one was living in it. There were a ton of supplies to remodel the house but they looked like they had been there for a while.

Revisiting the houses was rather nostalgic but a nice experience to relive and know how accurate your memories as a child really are. Not all things pan out the way you remember but for me, these did.