I Am A New Jersey Girl

I leaned my head against the car window watching the leaves blowing around, just trying to distract myself from a slight feeling of emptiness inside of me. This feeling seemed all too familiar to me. My family and I had all of our possessions packed into boxes yet again. We were moving to a new state. At this point, up rooting our lives and starting over almost seemed more like a hobby than anything more significant. However, I have just now come to realize that what seemed like constant inconveniences in the past, have actually taught me how to be the best me with influences all around the country. Living in three different states and five homes may have been a challenge, but it provided me with memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything because those moments created the person I am today.

After a long ride, we saw our new home for the first time. It wasn’t luxurious, but to a couple of young children like us it was cool to live on the beach. The changes that lied ahead of us were great. There are many ways in which this new start changed my life. First, no longer did we live in fear. This enabled me to move on. I enrolled in eight grade that year. I felt like had a fresh start. No one knew my business. I could make myself whatever I wanted. My whole personality changed. That year I started at quarterback for junior high and from there everything started to look up. If I was to go into details of all the success I had it would be bragging, so I am just going to say I went from a casualty of a broken home to a respected and important part of High Island High School. In the five years I was there, I had more fun and a more productive life than all the other years put together.

I moved to Connecticut in the September of 2008 because my Dad had a job transfer. This was around the time that I started the second grade. I was introduced to so many people and they were all so nice to me. Six years later, I made countless friends and started to feel like Connecticut was where I wanted to stay forever. But in December of 2014, my Dad got a phone call from a company in South Jersey and they wanted him to work for them. At first, he worked 3 days in Camden, and the rest of the week in Connecticut. That was difficult though because we did not get to see him as often as we wanted to. My parents then sat my brother and I down and asked us if we wanted to move to South Jersey. I did not know what to think. After six years, I loved living in Connecticut and I wanted to stay there. They told us that it would be a lot easier to move down to Jersey instead of my dad traveling every week. My brother and I both agreed that this is what we are going to have to do. I can still remember that day though. It seemed liked the world was going to a scorching end. At least my world was. I started to tell my friends that

We were doing all of our tasks perfectly fine now. But, it was time for another family meeting……. we were going to move in two weeks. Disbelief at first, then sadness, then anger, then sadness again.

Everyone has a different story that they tell which helps defines who they are. These stories are created from experiences, people in our lives, events that took place, important dates, places we have been, interests, and so much more. There are no two people who have the same exact story, which makes us all unique and should drive us to want to have our own individual stories.

Moving to the US with my dad, I had to learn to take care of myself and be independent. I had to tell myself that my mom is a thousand miles away and i’m on my own now. I used to cry every night because I was feeling homesick and i miss my mom and siblings so much. I miss the moments in the place I grew up in. I miss all the moments that I had with my siblings, playing and just being kids. I miss the moments where my mom would teach me how to cook and how to do other chores at home. I miss the moments where my mom was just steps away ready to comfort me. Because of this huge transition in my life, I became the person who I am today. I learned how to be independent and be stronger. I learned how to be a bigger person. My first week in the US was quite difficult. I wake up every morning only to realize that i’m in a different place. I cook breakfast for myself everyday, and I felt really lonely because I was just by myself in the kitchen. I feel so alone. Everything in the US was very fast paced and you have to move quickly or you’ll get left behind and you wouldn’t have any progress. On my first day at school, i felt so left out. Everybody were talking to their friends and there I was standing in the corner, not sure what to do. I tried to blend in but it was hard for me because i was scared that they might judge me. However, after a couple more weeks, I finally adjusted to my new lifestyle and met

I’ve always felt that growing up is the most difficult part of life. Letting go of the past and moving on sounds scary. Just imagine living with the parents for so long and then it being time to fly away from the nest. Now it’s time; it's time to embark the journey..

When my mother and I moved out into our own apartment, I thought it was going to just be me and her until I graduated. My brother lived with us as well but he is a truck driver so we never see him. Little did I know in only a year’s time we would have a full house, or in our case duplex, or that I would be raising a baby. Raising this baby would change my life, everyone’s life, even though we didn’t expect it to.

I graduated from college and found a job at a law office, the law in a practice sense was very different than the class room and I hated it. I remained best friends with my sister, my mother and I were still very close even though she was busy finding herself. I became very close with one friend who was my support, she accepted me without judgment and was a very significant person in my life. I was still in a relationship with the guy I met before college, he was four years older than myself and played the role of a father which, I was of the need of at this period of time in my life. We bought a house together when I was 22, I was focused on finances and renting seemed as if it was a waste of money. Looking back, this period of time had little obligations which gave me the ability to I travel and lived selfishly, although I was always anxious and overwhelmed. I wasn’t completely clear as to who I was and what I wanted to be. I was married at 25 however, was divorced two years

I stayed at the same school, Standiford, for two years then when I needed my friends the most I switched schools. I soon made new friends and in turn a new group to lean on and to have for support. Everything was looking up and things started getting better, that we until the summer when I was going to start the sixth grade. Over summer my mom told my brother and I that she had meet someone and that we were going to move, to the mountains. Just when I felt at home, safe, and that my life was looking up all of the blocks I built over the years came crashing down and I had to start all over. We moved up to the mountains and I hated my mom, at the time for what she was doing to my brother and I. Thankfully it didn’t last long, we were out of there in a week, an incident occurred and we left. We had nowhere to go and we didn’t know what to do. Then, my aunt called and we moved in with her, my uncle, and cousin in Lodi. I was still upset that I wasn’t home, in Modesto, but at least I was with family. About half way through the school year my mom gets a call from a friend in Modesto for a job offering, this was the happiest day of my life, so we packed up and moved back down to Modesto with my

My family has not been the perfect or the worst, we all have our moments that are meant in order to learn and gain experience. A few years ago, my parents decided to get a divorce. It was the end of their relationship, but also the one I felt that unified the whole family. I didn’t pay much attention to my parent’s departure, since I was a child all I did was wonder. Ever since the split nothing was the same for both, situations would become difficult for each but they knew how to overcome them. I learned to live through many hardships that were place upon me because I was the “oldest” in the house. I still dedicated myself to school, church, and my family. Other thing would always come second as I saw it as something that could hold me back.

I started to red in the face, did not want to help, I wanted to start putting at the boxes in the car bringing it to my old house, and I was not listening to anyone because I loved the old house. Then I started to get over it because I knew I would like this house, but my little sister crying and I told her it would be fine. Later in the day I was thinking that it had more room, colorful space, bright, loving, that we weren’t done with it,

As the oldest sibling and therefore the first to leave home, I worry I will return to a family whose dinner table stories I do not know or whose inside jokes I am not a part of. I worry that when I reunite with friends I have spent years becoming close to that we won’t have the same connections we had when we parted at the end of August. I worry we won’t know the people in each others’ lives anymore and that disparity will weaken our bonds. I worry that my cats will never forgive me for “abandoning” them and that they will never fall asleep, purring while curled up at my side, again. I worry that when I got off the train I will feel lost and distant, cultured-shocked, in my own home.

Family meetings in my house were never really good. Each time we sat down someone would have gotten really sick, passed away, or some other tragedy. This family meeting in 2008 was not really much different, as my sister and I both got the word that our parents were getting divorced. As an eight year old, I did not really understand the gravity of what was going on. My sister and I stayed at a family friend’s house for the weekend, indulging on barbeque chicken as our parents went their separate ways. My sister and I adapted to this new way of life quickly. Both my Mom and Dad still lived in the same town, which made everything little easier as we went back and forth frequently. It was strange for us at first, but with the time we figured out the ropes. Unfortunately, smooth sailing is never guaranteed. Storms can pass, fast, slow, big, or small. The years would go on to reveal this, and much my surprise, those “storms” would teach me values and lessons that shaped what kind of person I am today.

I went outside to see what the view was like from the backyard. A fence surrounded an acre of yard with a swing set and sandbox ready to be enjoyed. There in the back of the property was a newly built shed that my parents built. They argued about every aspect of that building and wanted it to look perfect. I even helped paint it white. I was only five years old at the time but my mother’s constantly said “you’re never too late to learn how to set goals.” I only had one secret goal to grow up and matter to the world and stop moving all the time. At my young age of five this was my 8th house and neighborhood. I had a sense of being an outsider at school but especially in my family.