Miss Vanessa Morante

An essay on~

Memories on moving to a new home without ever leaving the old.

It was a summer morning.

I woke up in my bedroom and heard my mom and stepfather talking in the kitchen.  It was the day of my big move.  It was a summer morning, but I was not in a sunny disposition.

I was excited, sad and terrified all at the same time.

My mom and stepfather had decided to move from my home in Woodbridge, Virginia to my stepfather’s house in Potomac, Maryland.

This move was not to the other side of the earth but, in many ways, it turned out, in my mind, to be just like moving away that far.

I listened to the conversation coming from downstairs more intently. I heard them talking~my mom and stepfather. I knew what they were talking about, too. They wanted to move to Maryland very soon where my stepfather had a nice house. This was a topic that was frequently brought up, but never really seriously until recently, after I’d finally finished middle school.

I had been the final obstacle.  I didn’t want to move and leave my friends. When the subject was brought up, I became very emotional.  I had taken a great deal of convincing.  I would cry and pout whenever my Mom brought up the idea of the move.

Mom understood that moving away from best friends can be really traumatic to a fifteen-year-old teenager’s life. I was worried I wouldn’t see my friends again and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make new friends in Maryland.

Although it would only be thirty-one miles away, it seemed at the time to me as though I was moving to the other side of the world.  It’s hard to get up and leave everyone you know and everything you grew up around.

A week later, moving day arrived, but I wasn’t ready to go anywhere. I just couldn’t accept leaving all I knew behind and moving to some place foreign to me.

The hardest part for me was having to say goodbye to all my friends I had known since I was a little girl.  They would stopped by the house, to say goodbye and they’d start talking to me and all I could do is cry. This was the largest change I have ever had to adjust to in my life, a new state, school, house, friends, and not to mention moving in with a new father.

It wasn’t the changes around me that I was bothered by; it was that I did not know one living soul ~particularly none my age in my new neighborhood. All I wanted was a friend to show me around..

My stepfather had said that Potomac, Maryland  was quite different from Woodbridge, Virginia. The only differences I could think of in my mind were negative ones.

We moved to Potomac, Maryland and got settled in,  I was enrolled in Winston Churchill High School. I made some friends, as well as some enemies.

When I told Mom about this she was thoughtful~she said “girls are the same everywhere in the world~some are nice some are not.” Mom’s counsel helped me to ignore the occasional meanness of other students, as well as some teachers, that was feeding my shyness and unhappiness.

While Mom’s advise made me feel better, I still did not want to believe this was my new home for near future.

At first, I didn’t try to make friends or to be accepted into any social groups in my new school.  Instead, I would always just drive back to Woodbridge on the weekends with my sister and hangout with old friends. This seemed perfect while it lasted. But, it didn’t last.

Eventually my friends back home in Woodbridge made new friends and I still was relying on them from far away. It took a while for me to get used to Potomac, Maryland but I eventually made new friends, while still keeping in touch with my old ones.

All told, I ended up with twice the friends and two different neighborhoods I could call home.