I spent a few days back home recently. At my mom’s house in a suburb outside of Houston. I’ve actually never lived there. Not in that house, not on that street or in that town.

I’ve never scaled those walls in the hallway. The back bedroom doesn’t have two different styles of wallpaper. The newer one from my high school years; a strip of the older wallpaper, from before the basement fire, in the closet still. The cement on the back porch doesn’t have my younger handprint engraved in it. The familiar items in the kitchen aren’t all in their right spot exactly. I mean, I can still find the sugar and flour in their Tupperware canisters to the right of the stove. The notebook, pens and scissors still have their exact spot so you can always find one when needed. But the cereal is now kept in the pantry closet, not in the cabinet above the dishwasher.

It’s a little unsettling seeing the stuff from my childhood in another setting. 

Even though I’ve only frequented the suburbs of Houston in my adult years, I do have my list of favorite places to eat when I visit. Of course, it’s not the Hy-Vee grocery on the edge of my hometown where there’s a tenderloin sandwich special on Tuesdays. Or the Chinese buffet that makes the best American-style chicken strips because my friend’s dad, who owns the restaurant building, taught the owners how. Or the new donut shop that opened recently. I frequent all of these when we go back to spend time with extended family still there.

We have our list though. My favorites in her new town don’t hold the childhood memories that I have of that small town in rural Missouri. But they’re new memories I’m making with my mom. Click here to head on over to You Are Here Stories and keep reading about how I feel when I visit my mom in a new place.