I was a child who hated major change, maybe all children do now that I think about it. It was the dull summer of my third grade year and my brother’s kindergarten year that my parents had the wonderful idea for all of us to move from the outskirts of Annapolis, Maryland to Hurlock, Maryland. Our house took two years to be built and in that time our old house was sold and we had to move to a one floor apartment. Constantly we had to travel back and forth over the Bay Bridge the only thing to entertain both mike and I were those booklets you use to get at the toll to give us kids something to do. (You know the ones where you get the stickers and place it in the book where you see it. It’s like oh look a cow, and a route sign and a sea gull! I better put that sticker in my book.) With so much traveling my hatred for moving was ever increased and I in trouble for not wanting to take that long dreaded two hour drive to the middle of nowhere land. I lost contact with all my closest friends and felt isolated being the only family with kids in my community for a few years.
Starting my fourth grade year I felt even more isolated having not known these other children since preschool. It was only a week or so later that I had started to make new friends (I have to say I am sorry to my first friend when I moved here as I never remembered how we met) and it seemed like I was meant to belong there with them. Throughout that time I felt like I had gained what I had lost, new friends to help make memories of us. I was excited to be a new person no one knowing who I had been before. Holidays were always a strain especially at Christmas break seeing as how we didn’t talk much then? I felt then like I had lost nothing but gained so much in those two years of my life. Even though I know I really had lost so much during that time.
Middle school was a hard point in my life with both losing and gaining. Out friendships picked up and again somewhere along the way I had made even more new friends. It was a balance to maintain being with both of them as both groups wanted nothing to do with each other. My first fight even if it was verbal was with a girl who I barely knew over some boy we both liked. I like to look back at that moment and try to see what I saw in him in the first place that it would have been worth a fight over. I was trying so hard to be a friend to everyone and it just seemed like I lost almost everything in that point almost gained nothing in return for it.
High school was an experience I will never forget, with both losing and gaining so many things in my life. I had met my first love of my life only to lose him three years later to death’s grasp. With a fight to the youngest friend out of all of us when it happened that day I thought I lost him as well to our words spoken in anger. Our mutual friends including the one I fought with helped me made it through those tragic few weeks when all I wanted to do then was cry and hide in
























my room. Life gave me the beauty of someone to have loved and even though I lost him I know that I now will have real friends forever who care for me.
Moving causes you to lose many things, whether it is books, photos, or a small part of yourself. What I learned to do was count my blessings for each day I was given and what happened that day. Leaving for collage is a struggle for every person no matter how strong you are, no matter how close or far away from home you are, you are still leaving the people you have known for a large or even small percentage of your life. The world as I see it is a never ending cycle in order to gain something you must lose something in the process. The only thing left to do is ask yourself was it worth it, what I gained over what I lost?