We Don't Live There Anymore: Reminiscing on My Childhood Home

Dear S,

I don't know your name, and you are probably too young to read this, but I've seen you running through what used to be my living room. I'm the girl who slows down while walking past your home – our home— the one my family lived in for fourteen years before you moved in.

I miss the morning light the most, S, though I pretend I'm too old for such sentimentality. It sliced through our east-facing windows and caught our Yankee Candle (a strange American touch in our otherwise Indian home), scattering into a thousand tiny rainbow pixels. It filled the living room, danced across the Ganesha idols my mother had arranged with mathematical precision, and crept into the hallway where my height marks lined the wall. Now, you wake up to that sunshine.

I was fourteen when we moved across our condo. We bought a house, which meant we could afford a larger unit, one with a bigger sea view my parents always wanted. The move was supposed to be an upgrade, a step forward. But at almost eighteen, preparing to leave for university in the States, I find myself still attached. Our old apartment is less than 50 meters from where I live now, yet I've perfected the casual "Oh-I'm-just-happening-to-walk-by" pace past it (though I probably look more suspicious than subtle).

What did we gain or lose in those 50 meters? I tell myself it's just a habit — muscle memory pulling me back. But even my mother has noticed. She swats my arm as I stare too long on one of our walks. "Why do you keep looking?" she asks. "It's not our house anymore."

I know I shouldn't stay, but I keep searching for proof that we were once here. I still slow down just enough to catch glimpses of your changes—picture frames hung in new places, a TV on the opposite side of the room, new curtains hanging in my old bedroom window. Your curtains are blue, S; mine were yellow and dotted with small leaves. Every change erases us—the tenants for over 14 years — room by room.

Perhaps homes don't forget so easily, S—some things always linger. During Diwali last year, I imagined your family placing diyas in the same corners as Mama did. Did the smell of ghee and cardamom fill the kitchen the way it did when we lived there, when my mother would wake before dawn to prepare mithai? Did the neighbors complain about your pujas like they used to about ours, or have they grown accustomed to Indian celebrations in that particular unit? Mr. Tan used to bring us his Chinese calligraphy during Chinese New Year; I wonder if he visits you, too.

Last night, while tidying up my new room, I found my old notebooks—journals filled with first crushes, high school fears, and dreams of becoming a Netflix star. As I flipped through pages written in that other bedroom—your bedroom now, S—the physical memories on paper brought back something deeper.

My old home visits my dreams more frequently these days. In these dreams, I try to walk to my old room, but the hallway twists. I reach for the banister, but my hand meets air. Stairs spiral to nowhere. Windows look out on landscapes that exist only in that place between sleeping and waking. It's as though my subconscious knows that place isn't mine anymore—perhaps it's already becoming yours.

When I heard the new tenants had a little girl, I felt even stranger about it all. It seemed like some kind of cosmic joke—another Indian, only child daughter growing up in those same rooms, sleeping in what used to be my bedroom (though they've moved that too), maybe even having birthday parties in the living room like I used to.

Some days, S, I wonder if you've figured out that singing in the shower amplifies your voice to the house, if you pick the same reading spot as mine, if your childhood will write itself into different corners than mine did. Have you discovered how the afternoon sun warms the window seat in winter? Do you know about the floorboard that creaks near the kitchen doorway?

Soon, I'll be leaving Singapore altogether for a dormitory in America. I've been researching dorm layouts and wondering which objects from home I'll take with me. I'll claim new spaces, making homes in rooms that held other stories before mine—just as you've done with my old home.

Somewhere in that first-floor apartment, sunshine still streams through windows each morning, turning ordinary air into crystallized rainbow pockets. Different eyes—your eyes—watch the light show now, different feet run across the floorboards, and different dreams take root and grow toward the ceiling like well-loved books on shelves.

Some mornings, the orange glow spills through the windows, just as it always did. Shadows flicker inside — parents calling after their daughter as she sprints across the house, just as mine once did. For a moment, all versions of the house exist at once: what was, what is, what will be.

S, someday you too might leave this place, watching another family claim your childhood memories. When that day comes, know that somewhere in America, I'll understand exactly how you feel. I hope you're creating your own height marks, finding your own perfect reading spots, and discovering all the secret corners I once knew.

The home remembers us all in its own way. Most of all, I hope you love it there as much as I did.

Sincerely, The girl who used to live in your home.