Many people spend their whole lives living and growing up in one place. Spending one 's entire life in a certain situation can and will have a lasting impact. When that person has to suddenly uproot their lives and move, it can prove to be quite challenging. Having to adapt to an unknown environment can be pretty difficult for a lot of people. Being separated from your friends and family can make a challenging situation feel even worse. It’s hard to try to start life over when you are already established in another place. This is a situation I found myself facing the summer my family moved from New Orleans to California. The summer started off like any other 8th grader’s summer. I was 13 years old and had just graduated from middle school. Graduating meant that I would be …show more content…
I had to leave my childhood home and move to a place I had never seen. I would have to attend a school I never heard of. One thing enjoyable moment throughout the whole day was the plane ride. I had never flown before and it was one of the few pleasant moments of the experience. When we arrived in California, I could not believe how different my surroundings were. For the first time in my life I saw what mountains looked like. The air surrounding me was different. The weather was unlike anything was I was accustomed to. It truly felt like a new place. While in route to our new home, my family drove over the Golden Gate Bridge. The house in California was completely different that my home in New Orleans. The neighborhood was more diverse. Interaction with neighbors was unlike anything I was used to. The neighbors didn’t speak when you walked out your door. There wasn’t a local market to walk and get a snack. I tried my hardest to look at the situation in a positive light. This proved to be tough, but I made the effort since I would be starting school soon. My best option was to make the most out of an unusual
Many folks go their whole lives without having to move. For them it is easy; they know the same people, have loads of friends, and never have to move away from their families. As with me, I was in a different situation. I grew up my entire life, all eighteen years of it, in a small town called Yorktown, Virginia. In my attempt to reach out for a better life style, my girlfriend and I decided we were going to move to Shreveport, Louisiana. Through this course of action, I realized that not two places in this country are exactly alike. I struggled with things at first, but I found some comforts of home here as well.
When I was 7 years, I moved from my home in Australia to the other side of the planet to Dallas Texas. When I heard that I was moving, I felt a wave of despair wipe over me. As Taylor says “I have never in my own memory been outside of Kentucky” (Kingsolver 12). This was the same for me since I had never been
When I was nine years old, my parents, two siblings, and uncle decided that it was time for us to move from Missouri up to chilly Massachusetts. Both my uncle and father were construction workers. There were so many projects in Massachusetts, it was sensible for us to move. Financially, this was also the solution to our money problems. All around we were all very excited for this move, all except for myself. About halfway to Massachusetts, I had a gut feeling that this was a bad decision. Upon arrival, I felt like a fish out of water and, I was. Everything was so different compared to how Missouri was.
Because of some of the circumstances that make me who I am, it is hard to say I have any one definitive home. Instead, I have had two true homes, ever since I was a young child. What makes this even more of a conundrum is that my homes have always had little in common, even though they are only a few hundred miles apart. Between the big city of Houston, Texas, and the small town of Burns Flat, Oklahoma, I have grown up in two very different towns that relate to one another only in the sense that they have both raised me.
Imagine having to leave your hometown, where you have lived all of your life, in search of another job. You do not want to move, but at the same time you want to provide food and a decent lifestyle for you and your family. News arrives that an abundance of jobs are available in another part of the country. Hoping for the best, you pack your bags and head for employment. Your kids are saddened about the situation, but they understand the need for relocation. During the travel to the new area, you and your family begin to get excited about living in a different place, even though everyone regrets leaving friends and family behind.
There are many challenges that one must face as we go through life. I have faced a few myself, however, none proved more challenging than moving from my country; Jamaica, to the United States and subsequently moving to the state of Wisconsin. Deciding to leave behind family and friends is the hardest decision to make, however, there are a few things that I was not prepared for that made the transition more challenging than expected. Moving away from all that is familiar culturally, socially and economically can be even more of a daunting task than imagined. There are things that are taught to us by our parents and others that are more dictated by our environment than anything else, so when I immigrated to the United States I had three major challenges to overcome.
At first, the idea of my family and me moving to the United States was fun and exciting. I couldn’t wait for the time for my family and me to leave, get to ride an airplane, eat stateside food such as spam, corned beef, apples, and oranges, and experience the different seasons, especially winter. Because of the excitement of coming to America, I didn’t have the time to think and realize the effects of moving away from home such as missing everything, adopting a different culture, and being independent. The major effect of moving to a different country, especially moving during my third year of high school, and the most familiar one was missing everything such as family, friends, food, and scenery.
I stepped of the plane at McCarren Airport with a huge grin on my face. I walked to the baggage claim like a little kid walks into Disneyland, with a look of excitement and a pep in my step. With a suitcase in hand and a foot out the door I could feel the lick of the dry desert air on my skin. I saw my mother waiting for me at passenger pickup with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face and that’s when I knew I was home. Being so far from home for college was taking a toll on me, I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t know anyone at Texas State, and I was being suffocated by the swamp like humidity that enveloped San Marcos.
When we arrived, it was a beautiful and sunny day. We checked into our hotel, waiting to move into the house we had rented sight unseen. The first couple of days were spent driving around town getting used to our surroundings. Our first summer here was beautiful, I surprised myself when I actually started enjoying my time in this unfamiliar place. The fall and winter seemed to go on forever, and with that so did the rain. It was challenging, moving from a place where our winters consisted of warm weather and clear skies to a place where the rain seemed to never stop. I was still unemployed, I hadn’t made close friends. I felt lost, I just wanted to make this place feel like home. In the later months I received an offer to work for an apartment complex as a leasing consultant, it seemed everything was falling into
Suddenly, I was put out of my “comfort” zone. Because my dad got a new job, I moved from a small city called Eugene to a big city called Portland. Me, along with my four other siblings, were put into a tiny private school with
Growing up for me some would say it was rather difficult and in some ways I would agree. There have been a lot of rough times that I have been through. This has and will affect my life for the rest of my life. The leading up to adoption, adoption and after adoption are the reasons my life were difficult.
The day I moved away, a lot of things were going through my young mind. As I took my last look at my home, I remembered all the fun times I had with my family and friends through out my life. Now I was moving 800 miles away from all of that with no insight on what lied ahead for me. As my family and I drove away from our Michigan home, I looked out the window wondering what Virginia would be, and what my friends were doing. A lot of things were going through my mind at the time. At the time my main worry was if I would make any friends, and how I would adjust to everything. During the whole drive down, my mother would often let me know that everything would be all right and I would like it. Trying to be strong and hold back my tears, I just shook my head no, wondering why we had to move so far away. Life would be different for me and I knew it would.
Moving is lots of work took me 4 days to pack and 5 to get everything from one house to the new house in Firestone. It was an extremely sad day when we moved because we have lived in that house for 10 years and have had so many memories like when i had my first sleep over i went down the stairs in a pillowcase and broke my hand and the time my sister did a cartwheel down the stairs and broke the railing and my dad was so hostile and frustrated. The part that made me so hostile is when people had to come to the house and look at the home very cautiously i could not be in the house at all i had to leave and and be out of the house of half an hour with my 1 year old brother. It's extremely stressing to have a little brother that but I admire
Summer before 6th grade was a time of changes and trying new activities. I had just graduated from elementary school, and I soon would be attending middle school! Summer was always my favorite time of year! I would have all day to sleep, eat, watch movies, then in the afternoon I’d go to swim practice. One day at the pool, I saw a flyer that said; “Youth Water Polo Summer Program, Join NOW!”
Once upon a time, I saw the world like I thought everyone should see it, the way I thought the world should be. I saw a place where there were endless trials, where you could try again and again, to do the things that you really meant to do. But it was Jeffy that changed all of that for me. If you break a pencil in half, no matter how much tape you try to put on it, it'll never be the same pencil again. Second chances were always second chances. No matter what you did the next time, the first time would always be there, and you could never erase that. There were so many pencils that I never meant to break, so many things I wish I had never said, wish I had never done. Most of them were small, little things, things that you could try to glue back together, and that would be good enough. Some of them were different though, when you broke the pencil, the lead inside it fell out, and broke too, so that no matter which way you tried to arrange it, they would never fit together and become whole again. Jeff would have thought so too. For he was the one that made me see what the world really was. He made the world into a fairy tale, but only where your happy endings were what you had to make, what you had to become to write the words, happily ever after. But ever since I was three, I remember wishing I knew what the real story was.