That One Childhood Home: Where the Porch Light Stays On…

Donitella Navusolo explores the sentimentality of a childhood home that feels more special than the rest.

Most of us have the one childhood home we remember more vividly than the rest.

So, what makes that one place rise above all others in our memory?

Ask anyone where home is for them, and out of all the houses they have lived in, they will usually have a favourite. The one with that creaky step on the staircase, or the one with the big tree they used to climb in the backyard. But why? Why that one? Why do we carry it around like a time capsule in our minds, something we've left behind, yet long for?

Nostalgia—a sentimental longing.

It's more than a memory. It's an emotion deeply tied into our earliest selves.

And often, it’s rooted in the place we first call home.

Perhaps it has something to do with the age we were back then? Childhood—it's the time of growth and development. The Time when we learn, when we play, when we build character. It's a critical time, physically and cognitively. It's laying the foundation in our early years for everything that follows.

Childhood is when we begin to understand the world, and where we live becomes a stage for our earliest triumphs. Our fears. Our dreams.

That house, in turn, becomes more than shelter, walls, windows.

It becomes a part of us.

Anchored in the senses

These memories don’t necessarily reside in our minds; rather, they exist in our entire bodies. The smell of freshly cut grass might remind us of early summer mornings.

A certain scent cooking on the stove, while you did your homework and waited patiently for dinner to be ready. Glow-in-the-dark stars scattered across the bedroom ceiling at night. Or the echo of your parents’ laughter in the kitchen.

These small details are deeply ingrained in us.

Because we felt so much. All of it. We lived it.

Not just the house, but who we were there

The "favourite" house often represents not just a place, but a version of ourselves.

Was it because it was the time we were most carefree?

Most curious?

Most loved?

For me, I often think about my best friend at the time, Mallory. I was only six years old, but I wonder where she is now. What job she has. Where she ended up.

I think about the neighbour's kid, Tim, who lived three doors down our street, in Sinnamon Park.

Yes, I still remember my childhood address: 11 Sandalwood Street.

Tim would always return home with a new sports award or trophy.

Did he ever become an athlete, I wonder?

And I remember dressing like Charlie from Hi-5. She was my first style icon.

Bright colours, glittery tops, chunky hair clips. I took it very seriously. That little brick house became my stage, and Charlie was the star I was studying. One Christmas spent in that home, I unwrapped a blue Hi-5 toy guitar and the infamous headset mic to go with it.

I wasn't just playing, I was becoming.

My bedroom was every little girl’s dream. I remember when my parents hung my little mermaid curtains and swapped my bed covers for a pink fairy-printed set. And of course, it wouldn’t be my room without a Hi-5 poster stuck on the wall right next to my bed. Tying everything together, a small, purple, love-heart rug lay in the middle of my room.

I remember the garden of roses that wrapped around the house.

The boring brick letterbox constantly filled with ants, crawling through our mail.

Every Friday evening, the distant sound of the Home Ice Cream truck would drift closer and closer. It was $3.50 for a box of 12 double-choc chip ice creams, an absolute bargain. My dad would rush to his maroon Mitsubishi Magna, shuffling through the glove compartment for loose change, always using the smallest coins first. We knew the truck, with its distant jingle, drove past at the exact same time every week, and the routine never changed.

Sometimes, the home we hold dearest in memory isn’t always the biggest, nor the tidiest. They may not even be the most practical. Sometimes it was the messiest, the smallest; maybe it was loud, yet it was where we were seen, where we felt loved, where we felt safe. Maybe our favourite home held significant moments. Where dad taught you how to ride a bike. Where you played cricket on the street with the neighbours’ kids until the streetlights came on. Falling asleep in the backseat after a long day and waking up just as you were being carried inside.

I like to think that we call it our favourite not because life was perfect there, but because we didn’t yet know what imperfection was. Our favourite childhood home becomes a symbol of a time when we didn't know much. We weren't aware of rent payments, overdue bills, or whatever struggles our parents might've faced.

To us, as children, things were perfect.

So why do we look back?

Every now and then, we catch ourselves reminiscing.

We revisit, through old photos, or in our dreams. We may still find ourselves driving past it, slowly.

Maybe we return to this place mentally, when we feel stressed, or overwhelmed.

Maybe it reminds us of simplicity.

No, we don't go back to a place. We go back to a feeling.

The favourite home becomes a haven, a shelter we return to in quiet moments.

Long after we've left.

A soft echo

Time doesn't stop.

We end up leaving.

We end up moving.

We end up growing.

Walls get painted and repainted.

Floors get gutted. Families change. Neighbourhoods shift.

We end up trading swings and bikes for spreadsheets and coffees.

But deep down, and at the back of our minds, that one house remains.

The innocence lingers in the rooms.

Quietly, it lingers.

Porch lights lit up, always waiting.

Where we revisit when the world feels too loud, and all we want is to remember who we used to be.