Life is a Roller Coaster

Today is the first day of school. I just moved to a new town where I know not a single person. This is my first time moving schools and towns. Never in my life do I think I have ever been more nervous. As I walk in the doors of the school everything seems like a new world.

Lately life has only shown me the downs. I would have thought that my mom would get time off to stay home with me after everything we have gone through the past month.

The first quarter of school goes by in a blur. Every day I sit at lunch by myself. Nobody has tried to come talk to me and none of my friends I had at my other school have tried to contact me since I moved. 

Today after school I am feeling extremely lonely at the house, so I try to contact an old friend again to see if they will answer. I waited half an hour, then an hour and still no answer. I find I am starving and since mom isn't home tonight I will once again have to make something for myself to eat. While I am cleaning up from supper I hear my phone go off. 'ping' I pick up my phone instantly with increasing anxiety. When I see my phone screen I have a smile on my face for the first time since I came home one night to find my mom on her knees crying with my dad laying on the floor with no life in his face.

I open my phone to see the text my old friend sent me.

"Hey, Olivia. I know you are probably upset with me for ghosting you and you have every right to be. I just hope you would be willing to talk to me still after everything. We all miss you at school things just are not the same without you. I hope you are doing better with handling the death of your father. If you ever need a friend I want you to know I will always be here for you. As you know I have been in your situation so I can understand what you are going through."

                                                                  - Your Friend

                                                                       Emma

I take in the fact that I do still have a friend I can rely on and the fact I know I have a friend makes me so happy I could just scream.

I reply to her within ten seconds of reading the message. 

"Hey, Emma. Thank you for reaching out to me. It means a lot. I want you to know I wont hold a grudge about the ghosting thing, after all we all have been a bit busy anyways. I am definitely going to need a friend I know I can talk to, plus I don't have anyone else I can talk to. It would be really nice to talk to a person I know, trust and that understands me instead of having to hear others talking about me behind my back. So far after I moved, life hasn't gotten much better than it was just before we moved out of town."

                                                                -Your Friend

                                                                    Olivia   

Five seconds after I sent my message my phone started to ring and I saw Emma's picture pop up so I answered the FaceTime call. We are on the phone for about four hours talking about how different things are now and telling each other our problems like old times. Then she brought up my father and no matter how hard I tried to hold back my tears they just came out and there was no stopping it. After that Emma spent an hour calming me down and trying to cheer me up. She was pretty successful at doing so too but something in me made me feel as if I was drowning and I haven't been able to figure out what exactly it is that is pulling me down. I tell Emma that I am feeling tired and she lets me go so I can sleep. As I lay in my bed I can't bring myself to go to sleep so I just lay there staring at the ceiling thinking what it is that is keeping me from letting go and trying to recover from the loss of my father. 

I wake up to the smell of pancakes and bacon like I did every morning before I moved. When I run out to the kitchen I see my friend Emma in the kitchen with her mom and mine at the kitchen table waiting for me to wake up. I just stand there in shock unable to believe that Emma was standing right in front of me. All I can think to do next is to run and give her a huge hug. As I embrace her into my hug I start to laugh and cry at the same time as I say, "so this is why you asked for my new address." She giggles and says "you guessed it. I knew that I wouldn't be able to go through another day without getting a huge hug from you." At this I just started crying, unable to stop myself. Within five seconds we are all hugging in a group hug. 

While on my way to school I notice that Emma is dressed to go to school just like me and as we get to my school my mom says "oh and I forgot to tell you Emma has decided to transfer schools so she can be with you. She and her Mom will be moving in with us as well to make the trip to school easier for Emma." The biggest smile comes over my face when I hear this and I squeal in excitement. The whole day Emma and I are with each other. I have so much fun at school that the day seems to go by faster than I thought it did. 

Later that night I was thinking about my father and that's when it hit me. The reason why I couldn't let him go was because I never got to say goodbye. At that moment I knew what I had to do for me to allow the healing process to begin. I ran to my mom and told her I needed to go to my father's grave. She was taken aback when she heard those words leave my mouth, but then her face relaxed and she said "go get your shoes on and get in the car." Hearing that made me feel more confident in my decision to go. Emma and her mom ended up going with us for emotional support.

When we arrived mom showed me where he was. I brought lights and flowers to put at his grave so I put those up and prepared myself to say my goodbyes so I could finally let him go. At the thought of letting him go forever made a couple tears go down my face. My mom saw this and said to me "letting go doesn't mean you must forget about him and all of the good memories completely it just means accepting the fact that he is gone." As I began to understand what she said it made it easier to let go little by little. The rest of the night was full of tears from everyone and a bunch of hugs.

As the week progressed on, I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders and I began to feel happier by the day. My mom also began to look and sound happier after the visit at dad's grave, which made everyone else happier as well. At school, Emma and I began to make more friends. I also found it in me to run for class president and won the election by a landslide! From there everything in my life went up hill and hasn’t dropped back down to a low. I am only really worried about one thing: just how long will this keep up?