Boom! Clash! Bang! The trophy hit the ground. I picked it up and placed it on my bookshelf where it rightfully belonged. My bookshelf is full of some of my greatest accomplishments yet. My soccer trophies and medals are at the top shelf; on the second shelf is my marble collection and on the bottom shelf are a couple of old photo albums which I haven’t looked at in years. These were pictures of my life when I was still living in California. As, I looked at a portrait of my family lined up in front of our old house in Sacramento, the memory of being told the news that has now changed my life hit me faster than the amount of time a high tide takes to crush a sand castle.

It was a dark, windy January day in Sacramento, California. I had just walked into the house when I heard the yelling.

“Why are you so intent on ruining my life?” I heard my sister, Jessica, yelling at the top of her lungs. I cautiously peeked into the living room. My parents were sitting on the sofa, trying to calm down my sister.

“What’s going on?” I asked, slowly walking toward them. As I got closer, I noticed that my mom’s eyes were swollen as if she’d been crying all day.

“We have to talk,” my dad said, his voice cracking at the end of the sentence. Talk? About what? Why had mom been crying? Jessica said something about ruining her life. My stomach churned as I thought of the best case scenarios, which in this case, didn’t look too good. All the spectral evidence was just yelling bad at me and my mind concluded to the best advice it could give in the fastest three seconds of life as a twelve-year-old: RUN!

“I’m just going to go put my bag
” I had started to make an excuse to get away for the moment before my dad interrupted.

“Just put your bag over there, this can’t wait any longer.” This wasn’t looking too good to me, but being the obedient child I was, I did as he said. Jessica had started to cry by the time I had settled into the sofa opposing my parents.

“I’m just going to come out straight,” my mom sighed, “we’re moving…to Texas.” TEXAS? WHAT? The picture of an old hippy wearing a cowboy hat and leather boots standing next to a horse in front of a ranch came to my mind when I thought of Texas. Just because we had a house near Dallas, somewhere, doesn’t mean that we have to move into it.

“Why?” the sound came out as a mere whisper through my shocked lips.

“There are really good business opportunities in Texas and the economy is so much better there,” my mom replied. As hard as I tried, no argument escaped my mouth. It was as if someone had paralyzed my entire body. I thought of all my friends, my family, and my school. I had just settled into middle school. Life was going great. Why do we have to move now? Pictures of leaving my beautiful house raced through my mind as my eyes filled with thick moisture. My thoughts caught me off guard and the tears eventually escaped. I couldn’t take it anymore. Jessica was right they were trying to ruin our lives as well as theirs. What would they do if they couldn’t find jobs? How would I make new friends in Texas where everyone was so different from me? The possibilities weren’t looking too good. I then excused myself to my room where I tried to persuade myself that this was all just a sick joke.

It was January 24, 2010, just two weeks after my parents had told me that we were moving to Texas, when we had to empty our house and hit the road. We had rented a U-Haul truck to load our furniture in which we left behind in a storage in Sacramento. When my dad and all the workers were halfway done evacuating the house, I was sent downstairs so that they wouldn’t accidentally hit me with anything. When I got to the bottom step and looked around, my mind was just like “whoa”. There was nothing here. I saw my pale face staring back at me in the shiny marble floor. I peeked around into the kitchen, through the garage, and into the living room. My heart just melted at the sight. I felt really hollow while remembering where everything was supposed to be and why it wasn’t there. I just slipped down, leaned against the wall, and remembered all the good memories I had in this place. I kept hoping that this was just a nightmare and I would wake up any second now, but even I couldn’t lie to myself about such a serious matter. My family just let me sit there and wear myself out with my crying. I bet that they were just yearning that I would get over it sooner or later. Oh, how much I hated them at the moment.

“We’re all done, sweetie,” my dad indicated. “You can take a look around for the last time if you want.” His works stabbed my heart sharper than a knife could have. For the last time? I was afraid that I’d just go upstairs, see the desolation, and fall apart again, so I just went outside and sat in the car. I tried to empty out my mind of all sorrows and look at the bright side, but my mind was determined to keep mourning over leaving California. A couple of minutes later, my parents and my two sisters got into the car and we started driving away from our house. Nobody said anything until we were out of the city; we all just remembered the things we went through in the places that we passed. My parents just tried to ignore it when my sister started bawling like a dog that hadn’t eaten for five days. I just sat there feeling lonelier than ever before, trying to get rid of all the negative thoughts in my mind, but I ended up crying with my sister. My dad kept on driving and my mom tried her best to keep herself from joining us. There wasn’t much talking between my family and I on the way to Texas. Jessica and I were too upset to be able to say anything. It all happened too fast for me to realize that the silence that I was so anticipated to keep was slowly drawing my family apart. It was the twenty- ninth of January when we finally reached Texas; it had taken us five days to get here. I had to start school on the second of February. I was very lost because I was learning different things in California and we had to start school at 7:30 a.m. and there were eight classes. Because I missed all my friends in California, I started hating on people in Texas. If somebody tried to be friendly and asked how I liked it in Texas so far, I wouldn’t really answer as if I didn’t really care about what they had to say. I had also started to fight with my parents for the first time in my life. I practically forced myself to forget all the happiness that life offers and started looking at the negative side of things. I truly didn’t know whether what I was doing was right or wrong and how badly it could’ve affected me if I hadn’t stopped my actions from getting any worse.

Now, after a year into McKinney, Texas, I have figured that my trip from California to Texas has taught me that the end is just the beginning. Just because life in Sacramento has ended doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the world. I have started a new chapter of life in McKinney, Texas, and I’ve actually started to like it here now that I changed my attitude and have given people a chance. I have started being much nicer and am usually always in a good mood. I have also stopped fighting with my parents because I noticed that they had the end in mind when they made the decision of moving. I now know how profitable that decision was to both my education and my future which look a lot better in Texas. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that no matter how big the problem, life moves on and unless you want to stay behind and become a failure, you might as well move along with it.