20th Condoversary

Tuesday the 12th was twenty years since the first night I parked my suit-addled backside on the floor of my dining area (in which I've since dined maybe once a year). Those were my first moments as a homeowner, the latest step along the journey to adulthood.

That first night I'd add a couple of rickety mesh lawn chairs and set a well-worn TV on the deep brown shag 1970's carpet under the old dangling tin chandelier. The rabbit-eared antenna picked up a relatively strong signal for M*A*S*H re-runs.

Within a month I'd added some used dining room furniture and end tables. Then a coffee table which was the display model. An awfully stiff paisley-colored couch. Grabbed a brand new set of washer-dryer from a newly married State Farm couple that had two of everything.

After a while, I added roommates. Steve Peterson, Ryan Short, B.J. Floyd, Jack, Chris Lundeen, Jim Chy, Chris Erickson. The founding fathers of the Love Shack nickname graced the stairway wall with family portraits.

Then Dena came along.

Now the Shack is tastefully (rather than masculinely, or simply not at all) decorated. Long gone are the carpet, and all the dated furniture, except for the beloved coffee table which could tell so many tales if it has lips. New bedroom set, shower curtains, refrigerator. Fresh paint, and then subsequent generations of fresh paint, adorn the walls. Stately tile lines the floor in the right places. Doors and windows have been replaced. The kitchen and basement were overhauled.

Yep, the Shack's aged well, a brick-and-mortar metaphor for life since then. I've lived more days here than even in my childhood home. I've discovered my own cracks and patched them up; found beauty in the the strengths I was born and raised with, and maximized them as I can.

Who knows if we'll be living here another 20 years or 20 weeks? A building is nothing more or less than itself. Gone and razed are my high school, my college dorm. The memories of those places is enough, touchstones for a fountain of sunny memories. Those are the lasting materials of a short life well-lived.