I'm sure, as children of military personnel can attest, that by now I feel like the foremost expert on "making a fresh start in a new place". Ok, that still sounds like my mother made it up. I sometimes wish that I knew what it would have been like to spend more than 5 years in one place. Would I have made life-long friends, would I be a more open person, would I be happier? And then I remember that what if's will drive you crazy if you let them.
This train of thought has come to me because of my old roommate. She moved to Savannah, GA. when I left for Europe and from what I hear down the grapevine, she's not doing well at all. So, I started to think about what I've done in every new state, every new school, with all of the new people since I was 6 in the hopes that I could give her some advice on how to make adjusting easier, and I've got nothin'. I never had a choice in the matter and it was always in the middle of the school year so I had to get into school. The only advice that I could give to her would be to join an interrest group, go to a church, go somewhere and GET THE HELL OUT OF YOUR HOUSE TO MEET PEOPLE! Sorry, but... she hasn't been going out- she doesn't like to do things alone. News flash, not many people like to do things alone, but at certain times, that's the only way that things will get done!
Let me recount my first two weeks after having moved to Florida for you....
It was February of 1999 and I had just left Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island (CIA in NY is a better school), driven 1,100 miles to a state where I knew only my family and was not happy to be in. So, I spent two weeks hanging around the house, wathcing T.V., and keeping the dog company until about 3 A.M. every night when I'd pile the dog into my car and drive around aimlessly until sunrise. Not exciting I know, but it was good at the time. So two weeks into my new life, I got really bored and lonely, so I took the dog to the dog park and voila! I got somebodies number and started to make friends. I really don't see these people anymore, but it was nice to have people to talk to and hang out with, etc... About a week after that I actually had to call one of these guys that I'd met the night before because I needed to be picked up on the roadside- with the dog- of the local expressway after recieving a speeding ticket (tee hee). That was definately embarrasing.
Anyway, the moral of this story is that moving sucks, uprooting yourself is, as a good firend once told me, a really lonely way to live. But there is an upside, a silver lining if you will, and that is experience. I don't think that I would be the same person today, good and bad aspects, if I hadn't lived the way I have. It took a while for me to understand it, but the phrase no regrets- I get it now. So, of course, I'm about to do it again. I leave for D.C. in 2 weeks and I think that this time I won't make a fresh start- I haven't got any left in me. I think that this time I'll just try to live.
CSHL- Sunrise, Florida, United States of America
