Have you ever driven by a house and wondered if it still looks the same inside as it did when you were 15? It can’t just be me. 

There’s a fairly common movie plot point that hews fairly close — the main character goes back to their old hometown, shows up on the doorstep of their childhood home, rings the doorbell and asks the new owner if they can look around. 

The homeowners are (almost) always charmed by the notion of allowing someone who grew up in the home to wander through it. Yes, they say, of course you, a total stranger, can traipse through my private domain on your adventure back through time. 

The main character, meanwhile, is struck first by how much has changed, later by that inevitable “find” ... that loose floorboard with the box still hidden beneath or their childhood markings on a closet wall not yet repainted by the new owners. The person with them is, in turn, given a special look at the main character’s childhood and able to better understand them. 

Tears are shed more often than not, sometimes in your living room as you watch it all unfold. 

This, of course, is why it’s a popular plot point. 

Here’s what doesn’t happen. 

No one knocks on the door of that house where they spent every possible weekend as a teenager, sleeping two kids on a couch — sometimes head to head, sometimes feet to feet — to ask if the water pressure in the upstairs shower is still a little bit off. 

No one rings the bell on the porch of the house where they spent so many after school hours, asking if the stone of the backroom is still cold to the touch even on a hot summer afternoon.

No one shows up on the doorstep of the farmhouse to ask why they chopped down the weeping willow tree that once made the perfect hiding spot during games of hide and seek.

We know why, of course. It’s for the same reason you’d never think to do it in real life. 

The owners would be likely to call the cops. Or maybe post on one of those local Facebook groups to warn the neighbors that some weirdo is knocking on doors, trying to talk their way into your private domain. 

And yet most of us have many childhood “homes” along the way — whether we officially lived in them or not. 

They’re the homes of frequently visited family members, the homes of childhood friends, the homes of babysitters and the kids who lived a few houses down from those babysitters. 

As adults we now have no reason to enter these homes, none legitimate enough at least to warrant a knock on that door. And yet, in our minds we recall every inch of the space. 

We can close our eyes, walk through the front door and see the dark wood of the living room floor. Eyes still closed, we take the stairs straight up to the second floor, hang two lefts and then a right and we’re back in that front bedroom where we watched too many hours of music videos, sprayed too much perfume and ate too much Chinese food. 

We can drive by a home and see a younger version of ourselves lying on the back porch, rolling Matchbox cars across the concrete. 

We can imagine ourselves back in these places, versions of ourselves that we will never be again in places we likely will never see again.