All that's left is the barn

cw/tw for vague references to trauma/abuse

This is the land where the home I grew up in once stood. In 2012 I was kicked out by my mom while I was still finishing up my senior year of high school, a few months later the house got foreclosed anyways though because she stopped paying her mortgage. A few years passed and there were still no buyers, plus the house was falling apart so a decision was made to bulldoze the home and attempt to sell it as a vacant lot instead. It's been about 6 years since then and there's still no buyers.

I spent Thanksgiving 2017 with a close friend and her family in New Hampshire and decided to check out the land while I was in the area. I knew my old house was bulldozed, but I had never got to check it out up close until then. I drove there alone and it was super weird to see the land. To think about the house I grew up in, all the things I experienced there both good and bad, and how they happened on this ground. And the house is completely gone.

I felt alone and beside myself and confused walking on this land. I don't know anyone with a history like mine. I don't know anyone who could relate to what I was feeling. How weird to go check out the land where your childhood home used to be because you wanted to see that the house was really gone. As if the house itself is what hurt me. I miss that house so fucking much and I don't know why. I have so many nightmares about trauma I've experienced in that house and I thought going up and seeing the land would help me feel some sort of closure so I could put those feelings to rest, so that my nightmares might ease up, or so they could maybe effect me less when I do have them. For a few weeks following this though, I had these nightmares where I'm crying and trying to seek shelter but my house is nothing but a dirt lot and I can't find comfort or warmth anywhere. Soooooo I dunno. Ptsd is confusing. I dunno if revisiting the site of your traumas is helpful. I'm figuring it out though.

All photos in this post were taken with Pentax K1000 on Superia 400 film ♥
These pics are from when I was still just learning to use my camera, and it was a cloudy day, so they're not great. They have a lot of emotion though.