I sat at a filled lunch table full of my friends, biting into my sandwich as I listened to them talk about their everyday stories that are shared with each individual. However, I immediately stop whenever I hear someone talk about their home they’ve always lived in, and how many memories have built up from that forever home. This is an everyday occurrence, as I have to pretend I don’t feel a tiny sting whenever the topic comes up. There’s so many times where I can’t even count how many times I have moved out of a place that I used to call my own, but there’s a distinct few; the few that I could never forget, even if I tried to forget them.

   At age 5, I moved out of the first ever home I had ever known, as all I remember from that night is the arguing and boxes being carried out into a U-Haul truck. The screaming from my oldest sister, who was only 8, defending my siblings and I as we have no choice but to sit on our empty bed frames and listen to the echoes of my divorced parents shouting aggressive words at each other. I was confused, everything seemed okay just a year ago — how was I blind enough to see that it was anything but okay? I stayed by my siblings’ side, nonetheless, as we all hoped that the next house was going to be much better. 

   So whenever I reached age 7, I felt the heartbreak of having to move out of our home that used to be ours again. It was only for two years, but I can remember the memories that we made in that tight duplex home. It was loud, as we could constantly hear our upstairs neighbors slamming their feet against the floors, along with my dad not being in the best headspace. However, despite our neighbors loud nature, my siblings and I became friends with the kids that lived above us. I don’t remember their names, or even what they looked like, but I know for certain that they were the reason as to why I had an ounce of happiness living there.

  The second year, my three brothers became ill. My dad couldn’t afford the hospital, so my family just had to watch them cough their brains out and see their skin go pale. We investigated their room, and found mold growing on the side of their closet. Before I knew it, we were packing our boxes and moved out. I said goodbye to the memories that were made, the first friends I have ever made, as I walked towards the new home we were going to call our own.

      During age 8, my dad rented out our home in Willow Springs, Missouri, and it was absolutely beautiful. It looked like those kinds of big houses you see in classic family shows; huge, rich, and welcoming. It feIt like it was going to be our forever home, and my dad looked like he was doing so much better than he was before. Our school was big too, and the kids were really nice to me. We flew kites every single day, enjoying the grass and the nice breeze that constantly flew past us as we played with this one stray puppy that we grew to adore; he disappeared one day though. I never found out what happened to the poor dog. Even now, I hope that he ended up finding a family to be his ‘fur’ever home ‘like what my family thought we found. 

However, a year later when I turned 9, the fun broke down like a glass mirror being thrown to the ground. We found out that we were being evicted for not paying our rent, as my dad had been spending it on horrid substances. I didn’t know what they were at the moment, I just know that I would find empty cigarette boxes everywhere alongside glass bottles that seemed to have an “adult” liquid in them, like my grandmother used to say. Knowing what she meant, I wonder what would’ve happened if he decided to stay sober for my siblings and I, despite knowing deep down it wasn’t that easy to control. 

   After Willow Springs, we took refuge in the Ozark Mountains. Our dad said that we’d just be there for a little bit and we were camping for a few months. A few weeks after my 10th birthday, the police lights were all I saw as a grown man in a police uniform, the kind you see in the movies, came up to me and my sister as we were refilling our water buckets from the river. It was deep in the mountains covered with trees, so we were confused as to how he could have found us. He asked if he could see our dad, and the moment I heard those words, I knew our mom had finally found where we were. That day was full of nothing but despair as we tried to claw our way out of the policeman’s grasp, watching our grandmother and dad be handcuffed and interrogated by the men who took us away. Hours felt like days, months, even years as they passed, finally reuniting with our grandparents on my mother’s side after waiting… and our mom in which our dad manipulated us into thinking that she was the enemy. 

But, this hug felt like it was acceptable. When she hugged my siblings and I, it felt like love. It felt like being cuddled in a warm bundle of blankets after you just came inside from playing outside on a cold winter day. It felt like home; our new home. 

  We moved to Wentzville, Missouri after our mom took full ownership of us again, and this was the longest time we had ever stayed in a home. I made friends there, I made my life there, I celebrated so many birthdays there.  I felt myself enter that childlike mindset again after hearing the news from my mom that she accepted an amazing opportunity with a job down at Jonesboro, Arkansas. I was being taken away from it all, after so many years of not moving, it was happening again. I turned 14 that year, but it didn’t feel like a huge deal knowing that I wouldn’t see my friends again. 

  I felt hurt, but I was proud of my mom so I never said anything. As our mom drove my siblings and I away from the house, I felt nothing but tears threatening to fall down my reddened cheeks as I looked out the window to distract myself from the overwhelming emotions I was experiencing. 

   In Jonesboro, it didn’t turn out well whatsoever. It felt like it was another prison we were set in, a living hell on planet Earth. There were no trees, it was humid and dry anytime my siblings and I tried to take a walk in our neighborhood, the worst part being that we didn’t know anyone. We tried to make friends with other kids, but they seemed disgusted by us. I never figured out why, but memories that did not stick well in my mind were like glue: never coming unstuck. I lost all of my friends there, went through a toxic relationship, my world tumbling down as though it was a pile of boulders on a cliffside. I celebrated my 15th birthday there, but I never felt so alone even though my family was surrounding me. 

Eventually, our mom saw the horrible energy that Jonesboro had given our family, so we decided as a family to move out of the house that we were living in; it doesn’t even deserve the right to be called a home if it never felt like one. 

     When we moved out from Jonesboro back to St. Charles, Missouri, my family and I didn’t have a place of our own; we were considered to be homeless. So whenever our grandparents offered for my family to live there, I was thrilled. I loved my grandparent’s house, it felt like a second home to me. So why was it after a few months had passed, it no longer felt like one? It even felt worse than Jonesboro did. 

I could never go out without telling them, I couldn’t dress the way I wanted to, speak the way I wanted to; it felt like I didn’t have any rights no matter where I was standing. I wasn’t allowed to be myself either, and I felt like clawing off any aspect I had of my identity every time they called me a ‘girl’. It felt horrible, and I felt like my family would never be free. 

  Suddenly, I heard my mother and my grandparents talking at dinner, and my mother revealed that she officially bought the house from them. It’s something that she had tried to do for so long. I, safe to say, was ecstatic. Over the course of a month after the announcement was made, they had officially moved out; we had a home. An actual home, not one that we rented, not one where we were in a cold tent on the side of the road, and not a house that lay still on the Ozark Mountains; we had bought and owned our first ever home. 

With buying a home, those certain feelings that you never knew you could feel enter your body at that moment where it hits you; that feeling is the emotion of relief. However, with the school year coming to an end, I’ve realized that my home isn’t the only home that I’ve discovered. I have made friends that I see as my family, I’ve joined classrooms where I felt like I could be myself in them, and I’ve shared laughs with people who I thought I would never get along with. 

So although the home that I finally own is my one true place I can be myself in, it isn’t always a house. I’m so glad that I met amazing people to help me realize that. I thank my mom and my siblings every single day for being there for me and relishing in the fact that our journey of finding a home is over, because I honestly could never have done it without them. And to those that I care about, thank you for helping me build a second home, one that I can always feel comforted and welcome in.