I could feel the heavy dusty air that lingered around my room as all my memories rushed through my mind. The emptiness surrounded the room that used to be full of life and-”Hey, can you help me out with these boxes?”. It was my mom. It looked like she was carrying about 50 boxes, but yet… I couldn’t help her. I should have helped tried to find more ways to help her. I should have appreciated her more.
I knew about what was going to happen for about a year, but it never came through my mind it actually would. After living in a house for 10 years you forget that you will not be there as long as you thought you would be. I overheard my parents one night talking about the bills, I’ve always heard this same conversation many, many, many times, but this particular one was different. Through those fifteen minutes of arguing there was a long pause. They did not have to tell me and my siblings anything, we just knew.
Months passed and we still could not find a place.”It’s too small”, “I don’t like the kitchen”, “I’d rather not have any carpet”, there was always something. One day my parents went ahead and found somewhere to live, but I still could not understand it was happening, not in a year, not in a month… it was happening, right there, at that place… there.
Boxes, boxes, boxes everywhere. If I looked to the right there was a box. How about to the left? there was a box there too. They were inevitable. I was hoping that the memories would fade, but they didn’t. Instead, they seemed to be more vivid than ever before. It went from the ‘ABC’s’ I drew on my wall from when I was 4, to doing mini-ponytails on my dad when he was asleep, to making my mom cute letters before she came back from work, and of course the time my head got stuck in the railing of the stairs.
That was the moment I lost it. I had no idea what it was but it was there. My mind was racing with thoughts one by one only leaving the dust behind, but unlike others this race didn’t have a finish line. I went to my mom bawling asking “Why do we have to leave?” over and over again and this time the walls were not the only ones that could hear me.
I could feel my mom’s warm arms while my sobs filled the quiet house. She explained to me that money isn’t something you can just have out of nowhere that it takes so much work and sacrifices to obtain it, and it was not something we particularly had. I unfortunately understood until then working for very long hours of the day was not usually fun to do and I knew that we all need a break. They needed a break. They deserved to breathe for the first time after a very long time.
Looking back it now, I am glad that it happened. We all are so much happier and the weight that traveled along with us is no longer there. I have not only learned to treasure the people you have in your life, since not everyone lasts forever unfortunately… but to be open with the idea of change. Nothing is easy and many times we will not only gain, but lose many things we value in life and we’ll all just have to deal with it to keep moving forward. We can’t expect to reach the top of the stairs when we haven’t even gone on them.
