Renovation

By Xavier Markowitz

As I write this, at my desk, with my computer in front of me, I think of when I was a little kid and I didn’t have to write memoirs. I try to think of something to write about, then I get it, my house. I have lived in this house for almost my entire life. It has grown up with me. I remember the day my mom told me we were renovating it…

The day started out normally. I went to school, came home, and did my homework. It was only over dinner that I heard the big news. The open windows let in the spring sunlight and scents. “Hey, Xay,”(that is my mom’s nickname for me) “I was thinking of renovating the house.” My jaw dropped. “Mom, I’ve practically lived in this house my entire life. You can’t renovate it now!” I suddenly became very angry and I don’t know why. “Xay, we have to renovate it. It’s on it’s last legs.” I don’t handle change so well so this was a big deal. I liked the house the way it was. I didn’t understand why my mom had to change it. “You’re so unfair!” I yelled. Then I stormed out of the room.

Throughout the whole week I was upset. I turned that sadness into anger for my mom.  While I was sitting on the couch reading, I heard the doorbell ring and then some unfamiliar voices started talking to my mom. I ran upstairs to see who it was. “These are the architects who are going to design our house with us,” said my mom. There were two men and a woman. One man held a very large bag. My mom introduced us and then we got to work. The man pulled an elaborate blueprint of our house out of his bag. We started talking and I was pretty bored until one of them asked me, “Is there any requests of things you would like to put in the house?” I smiled and started to think, “Maybe this won’t be so bad.”

I sort of think of my life before my house was renovated as the little kid part of my childhood, and my life after that as the more mature part of my childhood. The renovation of my house went pretty well, and although I didn’t get the video-gaming station I asked for, by the end of it I was happy.