Monday, March 1, 2010

I left my heart in California....

So these pictures are really old. But that's because the last time I was home was during Christmas Break. Today is the first day of March. You can do the math since I'm too lazy and it's almost 3:00am. But this is my house:


It's not much. But it's been home for the past 10 years. We moved across town the summer before I started 4th grade. This August will technically mark year ten. I remember being at summer camp the week that my family moved in and getting a letter from my dad. I was so heartbroken. The first nine years of my life were spent in one place and suddenly we were moving to a place for my older brother to go to middle school in a better area. I was so resentful of Taylor back then because the immediate reason for moving was solely for his benefit and I had to miss out on all my friends and the cool stuff that I would've been privy to that next year at my old elementary school. For everyone else in my family, it seemed like an easy transition and not a big deal. I was the only one facing huge changes and had to adjust right in the middle of things.
That first year was really difficult for me. I began my first tentative ventures into puberty. I faced my first real struggles with making and keeping friends. It was the first time I ever encountered the waverings of self-confidence. I experienced for the very first time the true viciousness that can emerge inside of girls and exactly how long a grudge can be held. Until that point, I'd been a cute little carefree kid. Fourth grade was the beginning of me growing up.
The next year started off on the same terrible foot. I don't think I'd ever cried as much as in those first two years at the new house since I was a baby. Fifth grade even started with tears. It was great.... But it seemed to get better for the most part after a while. There were definitely a few firsts though. I had my first real brush with chauvinistic male egos that year. It almost bordered on sexual harassment actually. But that was also the year, at almost the very end, that I was first really, truly rejected from a group of people. I'm still not sure why it happened, but it did. And it's helped shape me into the emotional mess that I am now.
There was a lot that happened because of the move my family made 10 years ago this summer. Some good. Some bad. There are a lot of memories tied to that house that my family lives in while I'm away at college. And a decade later, I'm able to say that despite hating that house the first couple of years, I miss it. I've been here for three straight months since the beginning of the year without my family or my dogs or my friends that I've made and kept and while they all continue their own lives back at home or off at their own colleges without me. I've been relatively alone and on my own to start the cycle all over again. It's been tough sometimes. And sometimes it's been awesome. Since September, I've grown quite a bit. But I'm ready to go home and have a bit of familiarity for once.
By the end of this month, that will happen. I'll get to go home for a few days during Spring Break in about three weeks and then road-trip back up to school with some other people. I'm so excited and so ready to be home and show people around my neck of the woods. I've been getting really anxious for it and was almost devastated when it almost didn't happen at all a few weeks ago. But now we're back on track and have a general schedule planned out. I just have to get through classes and being sick right now for the next few weeks. And then I can start the last portion of this first year with peace of mind and a lighter heart.

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