It was the middle of the month of December in my freshman year and the clock hit 2 o'clock pm. The school bell rang and it was dismissal time, the time that I had anxiously been waiting for so I can get out of school and go home. This will be the month that I can never forget.

I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was a tuesday, the wind was silent, the cold air brushed through my face, and the trees moved to the rhythm of the peaceful wind that put me at ease. I had gotten off of the school bus and was walking home after an exhausting day at school. I was already thinking of how I was going to throw myself on my bed and get some rest.
 

I walked up the building stairs to my apartment and there was a letter taped on the door. I looked at it closely and it was an eviction notice. The landlord had given us until the next morning to pack our stuff and move out. I didn't know if I should start packing my bags or wait until my mom got home because she was still at work and she didn't get off until 5pm. My sister and my two brothers came home from school. One of my brothers was really young so I couldn't tell him what was going on. I did tell the other two, but they were just insensitive about the situation.
 

Then came 5:30 pm. When I saw my mom walk through that door, I immediately gave her the eviction notice; she then started freaking out on me, “Why didn't u call me so I could leave work early and work something out with the landlord”? “you can still go to the office there's still time,” I said. “They’re closed at this time,” she said hopelessly. I went to my room feeling remorseful, feeling guilty, and feeling ashamed. I said to myself, “This was something that I should've known to do”. My mom came in my room and she told me to start wrapping things up while she went out and got some boxes. I felt like I was the one to blame for not calling her and letting her know what was going on so that she could take off of work early and work something out with the landlord. “Maybe we still would've had more time to move out if I had called,” I said to myself. My brother was in his room packing up, my sister and I were in our room packing our stuff up and my little brother was in his own little world oblivious of what was going on.
 

My mom walked in the house with about 13 boxes and she just lost it and started blaming me and my brother for everything that was happening. “This is because of you guys! You guys always want to have your friends over and never wanted to listen when I  said don't have them over, you guys never want to listen when I would say stop making noise, stop running, stop playing, you guys never wanted to listen now look at the outcome! look at what's happening right now! this would've never happened if you guys would've listened”. We didn't say anything. We put our heads down in guilt and continued packing. We stayed up the whole night packing I was exhausted, I can only imagine that my mother felt tired, worn out, hopeless, and desperate. I tried to keep up at her pace, but I felt drained; eventually I was knocked out cold and she stayed up to finish packing up.
 

The next morning about 8, my mom was rushing us to be ready and be out while she went to rent a moving truck. We had to be out by 10; we didn't even have time to shower. Shockingly, my dad showed up with mom in the truck but we were relieved for the extra help we got from him. Since we didn't have anywhere else to go but my grandmother’s house, we couldn't take our funiture with us; we had to rent out a garage for all the couches,the tvs, lamps, bikes, and a whole bunch of other things. We had to throw out a lot of other stuff as well. I didn't go to school that Wednesday because we were moving. It was a small 2 bedroom apartment. Now, there were 8 of us in a cramped up apartment, and although It was uncomfortable, at least we had somewhere to stay. It was very hard for me to go to school. Both of my brothers were fine because they had a bus to take them to school, but my sister and I we had to wake up around the time my mother was going to work so she could take us to school. The school didn't provide buses that went around my grandma's apartment, so everyday we arrived to school late. It was a long eight months; my mom was broke and was borrowing money. My dad didn't really help out too much, and the family was just falling more and more apart. We spent Christmas there, our birthdays there, and even the whole summer there and at the end of august when I was about to start my sophomore year was when we got our 2 bedroom apartment far away from my friends and the school that I didn't want to leave which was really tough for me.
 

We moved into our new apartment, we got our furniture back, our bikes, and all the other stuff that we didn't throw out and was kept in the garage. Even though I had to go to a different school where I didn't know anybody, I looked at the bright side, at least my mother and my siblings and I had our own apartment and our own privacy and we weren't cramped up anymore. There was many times where I just wanted to stop going to school and give up on everything but, I didn't I stayed strong and hung in there with a positive thought that this will be all over and things will be back to the way it used to be. I still went to school and I still got good grades because I knew that with that education I can overcome my past and grow up to be somebody in the future that can look back and be like that is what made me the person that I am today.