Everyone is talking about graduations and going to graduation parties and crying because they're all going their separate ways after graduation.
It is also the one year mark for when my life got flipped around.
About a week before my birthday last year, my mom announced that she was moving to Florida. Of course, my brother and sister were going with her, but I had already paid the deposit on my dorm room in Kennesaw and was registered for my classes. I had a great job at Chick-fil-A and had just been asked to start my leadership journey to become a team leader. Not to mention that I also have Luis and all my friends here. Leaving Atlanta was definitely not in my plans.
The final decision ended up being that they would be moving and I would be staying. The incredible irony of this is the fact that I always said that I would be going as far as possible from Georgia when I graduated. I didn't want to stay here. I wanted to travel and go to school in another state and start my life over from scratch. I wanted to live that American college dream.
But no. I stayed, and my family left. At the time, it hurt. I couldn't even imagine living with my mom in Florida and me in Georgia. Mind you, that does not mean we had a great relationship. We have an amazing relationship now, and we had one before high school, but something happened in high school that just tore us apart and by my senior year, we couldn't hold a conversation for longer than 10 minutes without it turning into an argument. I was glad to be getting away, but I didn't want to be SO away either.
The announcement came right before my birthday, so I had a month to prepare myself. I planned with friends to stay at their places over the summer. I told people at church, so I would have them to rely on if all else failed. My mom would be leaving on the last day of May, and my dorm would not be available until August 14th. I had a summer of house-hopping ahead of me.
During that month, I had to learn how to drive. I had never seen the immediate need to learn how, and I personally hate cars and driving with a passion, so since I had my mom and Luis to drive me around, what did I need to know how to drive for? So I bought a super old and beat up 1998 Ford Explorer from my cousin for $900 and I started my struggle to learn. It's a good thing my first car was that super big metal box, because I crashed into so many poles and ran over more curbs than I can count.
My Explorer's name was Shelly, and I don't think I ever took a full shot of her. She was kind of ugly *cough really ugly cough* so she didn't get pictures. Here are her tires. One is from a particularly high curb, and the other from a tree.
And after she was completely totaled in September (that's a story for another time) I only kept the decal on the front of her, as a souvenir and reminder of how she saved my life.
I also got a second job working as a waitress at a Mexican restaurant down the street from Chick-fil-A. On the day of my graduation, May 25th, I drove my mom's car to get my liquor license so I could work at the restaurant.
This beauty sparked up a lovely conversation about how at 18 I can die for my country, and I can serve people alcohol, but I can't drink it myself. Not that I particularly care, but Facebook blew up on this one.
I then I drove to the DMV, and butchered my test. Fortunately, the guy giving me the exam passed me with a 70. A few tears were involved, but I got the license, which is what mattered.
From there, we went home. I put on my dress, cap, and gown, and we went off to graduation. I graduated with the Magnet Seal and with Honors. I also had cords for French Honor Society and one more that I can never remember what that last cord was for.
This is the only picture of me from graduation on Facebook, and I didn't even post it. I'm sure there are more pictures on my sister's laptop, but I never got to see them or get them for myself to post them. Because three days later, we were finishing up our packing and moving everything away. It was a good thing I had bought the Explorer, because it did all of our moving.
Here I am in the passenger seat, all cramped up next to boxes. We moved everything into a storage and my family only took clothes and necessities with them. My whole room and bathroom was fit into the back of the truck, with clothes in luggage, cosmetics and toiletries in laundry baskets, and everything else in boxes. I was also given an air mattress. So with everything in my back seat, I spent the summer living at Luis's and my god-daughter's, Alexa, mostly.
I got a third job halfway through summer and just worked everyday. I took a few short breaks from work: a one day vacation to be whisked away to Tybee Island by Luis, and two weeks in Nicaragua on a mission trip. The rest of the summer was working until school started.
This is one of those things that I look back on today and I can say both "Wow, it's already been a year?" and "Woah, it's only been one year?" because I feel like just yesterday I was sharing a room with my brother, getting yelled at for coming home past 11 after a date with Luis, and telling my mom to go buy me conditioner because I ran out again. And at the same time, it feels like that was a lifetime ago, and I have been living on my own for ever.
My life is so different now, and it has been through all kinds of twists and turns throughout the past year. And despite everything that has happened, I think I'm finally at a point where I am truly becoming happy with my life and the way I'm living it. I'm not quite there yet, and I still have no idea what I'm going to do for the rest of my life, but I'm figuring it out little by little.
No one said life was going to be easy. In fact, they told me that growing up was going to be very very hard. And they didn't lie, it has been. This past years has been the hardest year of my life, but if I could go back to April of last year when I decided that I was going to stay in Georgia, I would make the same decision once again. This is my life now.
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