The Move

Summer of 2015

As my family sits around the haphazardly placed couches, glasses full of celebration clinking and words full of hope bouncing around, I think to myself, “My life has collapsed.” This change, this uprootedness, this chaos has to be the hardest thing I’ve ever endured. Just a couple months ago, I spent each joyful day in my home, in my town of close friends and neighbors. I floated down the river with my brother and mother, laying still as the sun slowly turned my skin hot. I swung on the tire my father hung under our cherry blossom, soaring beneath the pink flowers that cascaded down and created a little girl’s oasis. I stood peering over countertops in our sprawling kitchen as my father chopped garlic and taught me his recipes, the scent of pasta sauce settling throughout the rooms of my home that my mother decorated with warm colors and couches with pillows you’re meant to sink into.

Now, I smell the faint scent of cigarette smoke and old carpet left here by the elderly couple who previously owned this building I’m meant to call my new home. The kitchen is no longer big enough for my father to comfortably pass on his secrets on the art of the kitchen while I sit atop the counter, the trees left in this desolate yard are dying ashes unfit for any swings, and the dry grass stabs stiffly into my bare feet. I can no longer float down the river, the nearest body of water being Edinboro Lake, a small, stagnant pool of algae and rock. The decor that survived the trip is now strewn randomly because of the numerous expected renovations; it’s foolish to decorate a house that will soon be torn apart. This unfamiliar place is not my home.

As the night draws to a close and my first day of 3rd grade at a strange school gets ever nearer, I feel the panic start to build within me. I pull a blanket over my head to block everything out—the noise, the smells, the bleak lighting. Upon realizing that tomorrow will be a solitary day, 100 miles from my closest friends, the tears well and fall. My breathing quickens and shallows, and, finally, my turmoil is noticed by those around me. Words reach out to me, but I push them away, too consumed by my fear to be open to comforts. Instead, I repeatedly rasp the words “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go” late into the night, my childish voice becoming strained by the effort of sobbing.

The next day, while I’m sitting under dense clouds that turn the air cold and eat up the light, I swing alone on the school playground, back and forth and back and forth as my own solemn metronome. Chilled droplets from above sink into the cotton of my sleeves, kids who have known each other since preschool laugh with each other in the distance, reveling in the joys of recess with close companions, and I think to myself that “collapse” is a fitting word.

Winter of 2019

Elise and I have become close friends since I moved to Edinboro back in 3rd grade. For,years, we only seemed to frequent the same groups, but, after an abundance of trivial youth drama and ever-evolving friend groups, the two of us realized that we always remained in each other’s orbit following events that caused the rest of our companions to leave us behind. It’s reassuring to have someone in your life that survives the rough patches with you, and that is just what we’ve become for each other. Dozens of sleepover parties and countless playdates later, Elise and I have grown to be family, even receiving the honors of being invited on family vacations.

Now, in Key West, I shuffle around the kitchen holding a pan, sand still stuck to my skin in places and salt water in my hair. Elise bumps past me, carrying her own dish as we throw together a dinner a bit too ambitious for our limited knowledge of cooking. The savory smell of home cooked meals begins to wrap around us, and low music drifts from the attached living room where my mother and brother rest. When our meal is complete, I sit down across from my best friend, and conversation flows out of us in the easy way to which we’ve grown accustomed. In the midst of my storytelling, Elise begins to laugh with such intensity that I see tears trickle from her eyes, a sight so familiar to me after countless late nights spent sharing our best tales, and I start to believe that a collapse doesn’t always signify an absolute end; I’ve started to rebuild something quite beautiful from the wreckage of my previous life.

Spring of 2025

I watch as the sun falls behind the trees along Edinboro Lake. Families of ducks paddle themselves in front of me, and I hear the water slap the stone of the embankment, back and forth and back and forth as its own natural metronome. I am endlessly content to sit here in the air that’s still warm from the peak of the day and the girl I love sitting at my side. She turns to me, wind blowing wisps of hair gently across her face, and says a few sweet words. A small smile crawls across my face, and I get this feeling that I’d never like to leave this spot.

How funny is that? A town that was my nightmare a decade ago now holds all that I never want to let go. We sit back against the chair and look out to the horizon I’ve now watched more times than I can count. My love holds onto my hand, I squeeze hers back, and a welcome breeze carries the fresh chill of the water to our oasis. As the sky turns a warm orange and casts golden light over the girl who is my home, I think, “Sunsets look pretty nice over Edinboro Lake.”