Personal Narrative: Moving To Philadelphia

I needed an idea on how to approach a person in NY that I have never met or had contact with before. I thought an email might be helpful but the many times I started one, I just stared at a blank screen. I was really lost on how to begin my approach. I knew what I wanted to say, I was a little afraid of sounding like a stalker.

Before I moved to Canton, I lived in Wethersfield CT. One day during late summer when I was around 6 years old there was a bad thunderstorm. It ended up turning into a storm with tornadoes. My dad was in the middle of mowing the lawn and suddenly came inside, which is unusual because he likes to finish what he starts. When he came in he said that the sky didn't look right. My mom stood near the stove making chicken salad sandwiches with a worried look on her face.

It had finally arrived. Moving day. I was finally leaving my home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after five short years and a sort of gloom lingered in the air. Although many teenagers would be excited to reunite with their family, friends, and childhood home, I, however, was frightened of the future. I woke up that morning and just laid there and listened to the sound of the rain pittering against the roof and windows, pattering against the surrounding forest in which I shared many memories. After what felt like centuries of just listening and reflecting, I got up and looked out the window. I looked at my neighbor's house across the field of grass which separated our houses and at the kids who had become like my siblings. I looked at the ice

I was 16 years old when i moved to Cleveland. I had moved from California, a place that everyone thinks of as a area of movie making, opportunities, rich people with fancy lamborghinis and ferraris, well it's nothing like that where i come from. Compton california, the place that you can see 14 year old gang members with guns, get shot just for wearing the wrong color, or just walking down the street like my mom. I never really meet my dad he got locked up when i was 3 on an assault charge so i had to move in with my grandparents in Cleveland.

4,097 people. That was the population of Centralia Missouri in 2011. Moving had never been an issue for me, when your dad is in the military you get used to it. This time it was different than any other time. My parents were divorcing and my mom was forcing me to move to a town with only 4,097 people opposed to my home in Virginia with 225,401 people.

Many people move around to different states throughout their life, and I have had the opportunity to live in what feels like two different worlds. I have spent most of my life in Bradenton, Florida, but at the age of ten I moved to the small town of Cleveland in the north east Georgia mountains. The two towns are completely different in my opinion and only someone who has lived there would completely understand what I mean when I say two different worlds. The weather, the people, and the different opportunities are just a few of the differences between the two towns.

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

Moving from the South to the Midwest was a huge change in my life. For my whole life I grew up to the southern hospitality and the tang of salt in the air since the beach was always less than 5 minutes away wherever I lived. Now I moved to a place where they flip you off to say hi, and the closest thing to an ocean is a sea of grass that seems to go on forever. Although I am now adapted to the change for the most part, it took me awhile to break in to the social norms of an average Midwest kids.

I pray all is well with you and that you’re staying dry this weekend. I wanted to write to you just to be open about life for me right now. We had a conversation a few weeks back about me moving to Miami, FL and as time has passed I am more convinced that it is important that if possible, that I should make the move. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, my purpose in life is to seek and save those that are lost – to share my faith and help those who desire live for God to do so. I have been asked by my church (which has been my sole support since moving to Gainesville) to move to Miami on a supplemental mission team to help strengthen the church that was planted about one year ago now. I have prayed about this multiple times and each time I ask God

Roughly four years ago I moved to Buffalo with my mom and two sisters, best move ever. Before then I had lived in Rochester, or to be more specific, Brockport. My childhood house was big and gray. It had a huge yard and very long driveway. However, my house in Brockport is not my home. I call home my green and white Tudor styled Kenmore house. It has a small green yard and a short driveway. It has been the best part of my life because of all the opportunities that were missed out on when you live so far away. Here in Buffalo I have the opportunity to go the high school where my mom, aunts, grandma, cousins, and sisters all graduated from. For now my job is going to that high school, but the second I turn sixteen, I will be working as a cashier at the dashes down the street from my home, a little family tradition. The reason I moved though, is hands down the most awful thing to happen to me or that can happen to a little kid, like I was at the time.

Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love as the people say, but is it full of love? That’s the question everyone thinks about nowadays. On the northside of Philadelphia, the cost of speaking out against violence might be risking your life. But keeping quiet has a steep price too, in this part of the city. Having to live in this neighborhood may seem like any other neighborhood, kids running around playing but, that's to say the least. Homicide is the topic that is mostly talked about in this community where gangs, drugs and gun control are talked about in the community as well as, their freedom of speech. A community where someone's death is talked about than what they are planning to do for summer break.

Being from a town where there are no skyscrapers and a growing community, I had never experienced the real feeling of being in an actual crowded city. This city is like none I’ve ever been in, I had been in Miami, Atlanta, and Charlotte but those cities were nothing like the city I was about to visit. In October of 2016 my older brother ran into a medical problem causing us to have to visit a doctor that was located hundreds of miles away. From then on we had to travel to Teaneck, NJ, but minutes away from that town was the largest city in the United States which was New York City. I had seen movies, television shows, and news about New York, but I really did not believe there could be a place so full of life, so I was finally getting the chance

It was June of 2013 and I was in my room cooling, watching “Good Luck Charlie”. My mom came into my room saying that she was ready to move out of New York. Obviously I did not want to move out of the city I was born in. My mom never liked living in New York, so she always thought about moving. So the plan was to move in August. Time went by and I was thinking about what North Carolina would be like. I really wasn’t thinking about the friends I was leaving in Brooklyn, that never crossed my mind.

I was nine years old when I moved to California from Japan, all the way across the world. Moving to California was quite possibly the weirdest experience that has happened to me as a child. Trying to move from a place that I pretty much spent my life in than literally going across the world without knowing anything about it was very foreign to me, however my parents used to live in california for about one or two decades.

If I could live anywhere in the world and money wasn’t an issue I imagine myself to move to New York City, nowhere specifically I just know that I would live in NYC in what seems the world’s smallest apartment with massive windows that let lots of sunlight through.