Thanksgiving Home Research Paper

Paper plates, plastic forks and a pot of spaghetti is not how I imagined my Thanksgiving holiday. It was not a house packed with chattering family members or a buffet filled with five different kinds of the same green bean casserole. Instead, my dad, mom and brother sat with me elbow to elbow at a round fold-out table in the center of our vacant house. I blankly stared at each member of my family and guided my fork back and forth across my plate, trying the hide my discontent, and wishing we were truly home. In that instance I could not list but two things I had to be thankful for.
I was twelve years old when my parents made the supreme decision that our family would be moving. There was no definite reason given to me about why my parents were deciding to suddenly make a dramatic change. All I knew was that in the matter of a week my childhood home and everything I had grown to know would no longer be mine. Our house was put on the market and by the second day it was sold. Just two days later all of my belongings were shoved and stuffed into brown cardboard boxes and taken across town to what would soon become my new home.

With a new house also came a new school and new faces I would have to become friends with.

I was never outgoing as a child and always seemed to shy away from change. So, walking into school on that first day back and not recognizing a single soul was the equivalent to me experiencing that dream where you walk into a crowed area and realize you forgot to put your clothes on and everyone is staring. I was a chicken among geese and everyone knew it. I spent my time doing all that I could to fade into the background and hide from the unfamiliar faces. That was until I was unexpectedly pulled from the shadows and shown that starting over was not the end of the

world.
It was my second week at my new school when I met Nicole. She was a short freckly-faced, ball of energy that was constantly surrounded by her adoring friends. I first met her while attempting to conceal myself inside the tube connecting the two separate parts of the playground. She was playing a game of hide and go seek when she came across me and asked if I would share the space. I nodded reluctantly because just forming the word “yes” would go against all I done to appear almost invisible to those around me. She had sat with me for twenty minutes appearing to have completely forgot about her game of hide and go seek and was now having a completely one sided conversation with herself. All I could do was just shake my head back and forth as if I was a bobble head who was bounced and left alone in a room just nodding on. It was like I had not experienced a normal child conversation and had forgotten how it worked. My inability to exchange responses did not seem to faze Nicole. And when the harmony of whistles began to sound signaling the end of recess I looked down to find a hand in my hand and I was running alongside a new friend.
At a time in my life where every day was a constant cycle that never seemed to have an end one kind gesture, one simple sign of friendship, completely changed my world. I did not hold the confidence within myself to break out of my comfort zone and meet new people, it took someone who wasn’t scared of being themselves to prove to me that though the circumstance may have not been unfavorable in my eyes I had to take what was before me and make the best of it.
After that day on the playground the blinders I had worn tunneling me from the opportunities around me had been removed. I began to see the smiling faces of my classmates and the welcoming arms of my teachers. Not only was I noticing a change within the hall of my school I also saw change among my family and home. Pictures were hung and furniture was slowly unwrapped and scattered about the house. That night my dad, mom and brother sat with me at our long wooden dining room table in the center of our new home, and I began to think of the never-ending list of things I had to be thankful for.