Personal Narrative: My First Time Moving

First time moving
I loved to play in the backyard of our little suburban house on 842, Tiablanca rd. In the front yard, the grass was cut neat and cleome flowers hid most the mold at the base of the house. On the porch, there was an old rocking chair with the paint mostly peeled off and that’s where my Mom would sit in the mornings because it had a great vantage point of the street so she could watch as my brothers waited for the bus. There were Wooden panels that lined the windows in front and they once match the rocking chair and the side gate that led to our tiny back yard, that was filled with overgrown grass and weeds high enough for me to hide in and no one would be the wiser. I’d spend more time out there than I would inside. After I’d finished the homework my mom would give me, I’d jump back there to make thorny mud pies and play silly games. One game, in particular, I liked to call “goose hunt.” It was a pretty simple game. I’d throw a bunch of balls into the tall grass and the try to find them all within 2 minutes. I loved to see how many my friends could –or couldn’t find
in my backyard paradise. There were cactuses in some spots and if you weren’t careful you could fall into a few holes, but I knew every inch of my 10 by 20-foot utopia. When I was back there it seemed like all my problems were solved, it was my secret place, and one that only I appreciated. Until one day my dad came home and announced we were moving.
We’d had dinner that night at our little round table just like we always did. Mom sitting on my right, my brothers to my left, and dad across from me. He’d brought home pizza, and cookies – which he practically never did –, and mom hadn’t even yelled when I tracked mud from the bathroom to the back door, so I knew something was up. We talked about our day but that did little to dispel the charged air of excitement billowing from the left side of the table. After we’d eaten the pizza and before we opened the cookies they told me. “Sarah, how would you like your own room?” A downright dirty, clever trick it was, but it didn’t work. I was up and dashing for the back door before they could get their feet to the ground. Passed the stove, the fridge, the cabinets; Three more feet to the door and two more after that, then I’d never come back out. I hit the door with the force of a baby rhino being called back to the wild and just as hard, and swiftly as I had hit, I rebounded off and fell to the floor; they had barred the door from the outside.
My eight-year-old world was spinning out of control. I hadn’t imagined they’d say that. Believe me, the thought of going to a new place excited me like Spanish explorers on the shore of the new world, but living there and never coming back is what I distressed me the most. What was I to do without my hidden treasure holes, thorny mud sculptures, and stick men? “You’ll like it. I promise.” My mom said, nonetheless I was still dubious. But soon days turned into weeks and those into months, then it was moving day and I wasn’t ready.
After I’d packed up all of my toys and said goodbye to my neighborhood friends, I climbed into the back of our green, three door Chevy venture, sat in my perpetual seat and cried. I cried until I fell asleep from exhaustion, and when I woke up we were in El Paso. It was my first time being in a different state, my first time being so close to a different country, and the first time I was awake without crying. We rarely stopped but when we did I’d get out to stretch my legs and smell the air. In El Paso, we stopped at a gas station in the middle of the desert, and although the ground was dry and it hadn’t rained, the fragrant aroma of the creosote bush was pungent; it smelled like home, and at that moment I decided to try to find the silver lining. Because if someplace hundreds of mile from my backyard could smell just like it, maybe this new place wouldn’t be so different.
I’d stopped crying altogether by the time we got to Austin the next day.
Mostly because my dad stopped at a trampoline park, and the super tall buildings, but also because I was excited to see what my new home would be like. Maybe having my own room wouldn’t be so bad, if I could fill it with anything I liked.
And so on the second day after leaving home, we made it. It was nothing like home. It was huge in comparison and there were a lot more kids around. I could see my grandma whenever I liked and the backyard was as a lot bigger than my old one. It still took time for me to get used to being in a new place, but I was no longer troubled by change. I realized that it was just a part of living, and in doing so, I grasped one of the building blocks that made me into the person I am today. Another would come three months later when my mother would announce that she’s pregnant with
twins.