…Taking away something I’ve known for all my life, gone... What seemed to be a scary dream, in which I cannot awake from. I had lived in the same place practically my whole life. The school I went to was great. I knew everyone, and everyone knew me. I had lived there for 13 or more years, so I was very comfortable with my surroundings, and how things were turning out. Well… On a late Friday night at the end February, that was all about to change. I distinctively remember that night pretty clearly. My parents were gone majority of the day, and I was home watching my younger relatives until they returned, so I could go to my friend’s house. I got a text from my mom around 5:30pm saying, “Be home soon, and bringing home dinner.” When I received that text I was excited that I would finally, after a very long wait of what seemed to be hours upon end, see my best friend. Little did I realize, that wasn’t going to happen. They walked through the front door and then exclaimed, “We need to have a family talk.” Being as eager as I was, I just thought to myself, “I don’t care, I just want to get out of here.” That mood was a drastic change when they said the first sentence at the dinner table. “How would you guys feel if we moved?” My first initial response was just in shock. I had never really thought of that topic before for a very long time. It never occurred to me, because I knew I was not the only one who was very pleased with our lives there. My only question I had for my parents were, “Where would we move too?” The response was not one I would have ever guessed. They told us to think about if we were to all move to Washington D.C! That name immediately triggered my interest, and I had to know more. It was a very open discussion, and my parent’s didn’t push for any answer. So the choice was completely up to us. We started to list all of the pros and cons of moving, and everything was leaning towards moving. Some of the great things that we talked about were the attractions. Smithsonian’s, The White House, The Washington Monument, The Lincoln Memorial, etc. Talking for a couple of hours, we went for it. It was official, we were moving in a couple of months. Looking back on it I didn’t realize how fast those few months would actually go by. I feel as if I didn’t get to do all of the remaining things I wish I could have done before leaving everything behind. That concept “leaving everything behind”, never dawned on me either. Eventually as eager as I was at the time, that time came to when we were finally leaving. We said our final goodbyes to our distant family prior to this day, for one exception. Our sister had decided not to come with us because she had just started her life on her own. Our family was very understanding, but that evening was none the less very hard. We had driven to Washington, instead of flying because to hire movers, the expense would have been through the roof! It was a very long, and tiring sixteen hour drive from St. Louis to Washington, but we had finally made it. When we arrived at our new home I felt as if I was 5 again. I wanted to just run inside and check everything out. It was the most beautiful house we had ever lived in, and the best part of the whole thing is I had the whole third floor all to myself. It wasn’t like an attic at all or anything. It had a room, living room, and bathroom. I was so excited to finally get settled in, and just go check out the city.
There is so much to see in Washington we never even go to see it all. We toured that entire summer almost every weekend. It was at this time, things started to go downhill. School was about to start. Now the problem I had had with this is this was my senior year. Yes I moved away my last year of high school. At the time I never really cared or had thought about it all that much. But it was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do when that time did come. I went to the same school, or school district, my entire life. Not only was I getting very depressed at the time, but so was my family. We had all missed our family so much, my dad’s boss was a monster, and we tried to just deal with it, but it didn’t work out so well. I was there for maybe 6 months, and knew it was time to leave, and head back to the Midwest. There are so many other things along this journey that it’s just hard to describe, say, and or try to put in this essay. I did end up moving to Crown Point/Winfield. It is was the best decision we had ever made. We all absolutely love it here, and have for the past year, and two months, and it’s only going to get better. I would say that is an event in my life that has changed, and effected who I am today.