Built in 1972, with five bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, a single-family home of 3,054 square feet has been off the market since 2009.  As the house ages, so does the little girl who grew up within its walls.

The rusty, old, worn-down muddy colors of tan and burnt red have stripped away like old paint on decaying wood covering our bygone metal swing set. Mom and Dad never let us play on it — it was screaming tetanus. It got taken apart bolt by bolt and thrown in the trash a short time later. Old photos captured on Mom’s dusty Panasonic camcorder showed young girls in bulky winter coats that morphed into older girls running out the front door in tiny tops just to fit in at school.

The brown plank walls darkening the family room were torn down, painted over first with white, then with a crème that had tints of yellow that looked like it was sun damaged, and then with a welcoming shade of Valspar green bought at Home Depot, picked from the wall of paint swatches. These walls once held secrets of the little girls spoiling Christmas gifts just before Old Saint Nick came down their ashy chimney in his cherry red suit ready to bear himself to three chocolate chip cookies scattered on a white porcelain plate with a glass of milk on the side. Whispered nothings of a 2012 Mattel playset wrapped in festive paper molded into shouted obscenities over the black quarter zip jacket I had to wear to school.

The teddy-bear-brown carpet was scattered over the main floor of the house.

In the kitchen, the same mousy carpet that cushioned falls to the dismay of rug burn also grew hands that stretched out and plucked crumbs soon to be eaten by little chubby fingers attached to an innocent four-year-old body or a white, wooly beast walking on four legs. The chubby fingers grew longer, slimmed down, and now must maintain a full set of fake nails to feel beautiful and composed in a life that is far from serene.

My bedroom had yellow carpet with flecks of orange that complimented the bubblegum pink walls and Disney princess sheet sets. Here were dreams stored in the popcorn ceilings, many pillow fights, and even tears of a little girl who fell off her bike.

Now, the bedrooms have been upgraded to light gray carpet with black flecks, the same white wooly beast on four legs doubled, and the same brown carpet in the kitchen and dining room is now marbled lumber beams that get mopped weekly.

Three bedrooms on the main floor which once held a family with two little girls squealing in Ariel nightgowns, pushing vibrant toy strollers around packed with Barbie dolls, staying up past their bedtime, now holds one girl, screaming at her phone, blasting profane rap first thing in the morning, and staying up past her bedtime crying over a boy who broke her heart.

Real estate brokerage websites refer to the five-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath house as a “diamond in the rough”; I refer to it as home.

Birthday gifts turned from brand new dolls that had cool silicone purses and arched feet to gunmetal car keys tied to the 2012 black Chevy Cruze with 136 thousand miles on it sitting just beyond the front window. The same bright blonde little girl who begged her parents for a 12-volt Minnie Mouse convertible suspended on unreachable Walmart shelves is the same older girl who had to call her parents and beg them not to be mad over her first speeding ticket.

Alongside the house built in 1972 with five bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms, I have grown too; discarding old belief systems and embracing new ways of thinking that define me today just as the brick walls have opened themselves to new memories.