Personal Narrative: The Move

Walking away from everything you once knew and starting over is never a picnic. Leaving Iraq, and moving to America has impacted my life more than anything. I was only 4 years old at that time, and the only English I spoke was “excuse me, water please.” My family and I did not know it then, but our lives were going to change; we would become “Americanized”. Learning English was one of the massive changes that occurred, the way I dressed (culture), and even the way I had power to go to school and educate myself.

On August 13th, 2016 my family and I started a new life. We were forced to relocate from Southern California to Prosper, Texas for my dad’s job. When I moved I knew absolutely no one. It was extremely hard to move away from my people that I have been friends with for almost my whole life. It was even harder to say goodbye to my grandma and my brothers. Finding new friends and adjusting to a new city in a new state was very difficult. On the first day of school, I was extremely nervous, because I didn’t know anyone.

When I first heard we were moving here, I thought to myself. Why did dad have to take this job? I mean I don’t hate it here. I just hate the fact that I didn’t get to tell most of my friends I was leaving. Although, something good came out of this. I get to see an old friend of mine, at least start something over. This house is nicer than the one before. I still remember the time when mom thought there was a rat in the cabinets, man was she scared.

It all started on a warm sunny day, my dad had just arrived from Michigan. He came into the house gave my siblings, my mother and me a hug and told us the big news. “We are moving to Michigan” he said. He said it so calmly as if expecting my siblings, my mother and myself to react in a good way. Immediately I started to panic, I didn’t want to leave the place I grew up in. I was only eleven years old, I didn’t know how the people in Michigan would be. Finally I spoke “ I don’t want to move dad, I love it here!” which he responded with “I’m sorry but we are going to move because we can’t afford to live here anymore” He said this so emotionless as if not knowing how this could affect me. I hardly got any sleep that night for the fact that my parents were arguing for what felt like all night, but in reality was just an hour.

My parents had packed everything. EVERYTHING. There was bareness on the walls and there was around us except piles and piles of boxes. I looked around the house one last time as cold salty tears streaked down my face. I was covered in tears from the waist up. The feeling of leaving everyone made me empty inside. I felt hollow. Finally my dad said, “Let’s go!” I pleaded with him to let us stay, but I got the same usual answer, “You’ll be fine.” I wasn’t.

The day I found out I was moving, my first reaction was relief, for up until that point, I had concluded that the reason my parents were so serious, was because I’d done something wrong. However, as soon as that thought disappeared, another one replaced it. Why were we moving to DC? We were perfectly fine in the neighborhood that we lived in. Slowly, I began to realise that I did not like the idea of moving. I didn’t say this outloud because I was still confused. Was this a joke? Instead, I put on a bright smile and reacted as if they told me that they were going to throw a party. For the rest of the day I did my best to ignore the conversation we had, to ignore the fact that we were moving. It was not until

Knock! Knock! Knock! Knock! There was a knock the door late at night. There was a letter, it was from the manager at the sunny slope apartments. The next morning we opened the letter. It said we were getting evicted. We didn’t know why. But we knew what it meant, we had to move! We were so worried, because we didn’t know where we could move or even worst of all we didn’t know if we were going to have to move a different school. I had been at that school my whole life, and known all of my friends there.

I need you home now.” This was my wakeup call and I knew that I had to hurry home. “I’m coming home now mom. I’ll be there in a bit. Everything is going to be alright.” Keeping my composure I went to the NHS president and told her that I had a family emergency and that I had to go. For some reason she was giving me a hard time about it but after seeing my eyes she asked if everything was alright. I just said I had to go and she finally let me go without asking anything further of me. I darted out of the cafeteria doors taking a right on the first floor hall way on the east side of the building and then a left I went through one of the schools entrances on 59th court. I live on the same street as the school just three miles away. At that moment I felt stranded. I did not have my “proper gear” to run it as fast as I could and at the time for some reason I did not bring my car to school. However, I knew I had to get home fast so I took off. As the cars passed me I lost myself in my head. I was not crying or even sad. I was unsure of how I should react. Then the thoughts of what if I never get to talk to him again ran through my head. That is when the tears started to pour down my cheeks as I continued to pant.

Once my parents separated, my mother, sister, little brother and I left my grandmother’s house to stay with different relatives until my mother got it together. But our first stop was act my older sister’s house. It was different waken up somewhere different, waken up in a new environment, and new retinues. Once we adapted to one living situation it seemed like it was time to move again. Once I stated to get attached to my nieces and nephews it was hard for me to leave them and start over again but I couldn’t change anything. It seemed like my mother had it all together now. I had started a new school, new setting new house. I was excited again happy to have my own space again. Things were going great until it was time to

Have you ever lost someone or something that was very important to you? In this prompt I am going to tell you about me having to move from one house to another.

The weather cleared up and me, along with my entire class and teachers, got to enjoy a beautiful ceremony. Lining up we started to proceed out to the football stadium from the gymnasium, my mind would not stop thinking. I just could not stop remembering what it took for me to get to this day. The stress that I endured studying for the SAT, filling out my applications and most importantly, perfecting my essay. The idea that I was not going to be living in this beautiful town I have spent my life in, brought a flood of emotions. Thoughts of my friends not being by my side next year made me feel as if I was sinking into a deep hole; this place, this town has had so much to offer to me. The past two years that I had spent in this place were the most emotional and exciting times of my life. I knew even though I was not going to be waking up in my familiar place anymore, I would be waking up in what was to become my new familiar place. I knew that even though my friends would not physically be there with me every day, that they would be there when I called them. If it were not for all of the people I have met along the way, I do not think I would have ended up where I am today. It just is a common thought for whenever I get sad about everything ending, I remind myself that there is a new beginning coming and it is going to be amazing. The place that I have spent my whole life

As I went back for Christmas break I can remember the feeling I got when I walked into my room and even more when I lay on my bed. For once in my life I have known what is what was like to be out there on my own, in my own dorm room, doing my own things, in charge of my own life. As a child I never appreciated the value of having my own room to myself because I didn’t know what it was like to not have one. Everything was so simple back then; everything was pretty much handed to me. However as I progressed through this first year I realize that the real life is not like that at all. I need to be able to adapt to change; to be able to make my home wherever I am at. As Ann tells us at some point in life our homes stop being homes and like for me now it was just a place that I come back during breaks. Ann is in a more dramatic situation then mine but it still is the same. She had a home at one time but now she has learned to take her home with her and adapt to the change of everyday life.

I see a bright light my eyes feel stuck together like they don't want to open,soon enough I see clearly and start to see something grey with pointy ears. I turn to the other side of the bed and see my mom standing there waiting for me to get out of bed. I start to sit up as my mom starts to talk.

At a young age, I moved from the country I was born in (Dominican Republic) to Miami Florida. Moving is not an easy thing to do, I had to leave all of my friends and family behind and become familiarized with uncertain place. I was surrounded by the unknown, everything was strange and so different to what I was usually use to. At the time I could not speak any English at all but that eventually did not matter to me, I slowly started adapting to my new environment and I became more positive. Although I could not communicate well and had a few obstacles I was very organized with my studies and kept very decent grades.

It was just another Saturday afternoon, but instead of my family taking their usual places in line, my friends took their spots. As our lives settled to move on without us, my brother would stay at home to do homework, my dad would stay with him, and my mom still brought me just like before, only she now sat in the lounge working on her unfair laptop instead of accompanying me on the mountains. They all grew up a little more, so I tried to, too. And even though I missed