Moving Away Again

I’m dreading this week! Friday we are moving out of the Bronx and going to some sub-urban hick town in New Jersey. There is nothing to do there. I am pissed off that my parents did not consider our feelings when making these plans. What am I going to tell my friends?

I walk outside and the streets are full of life. People everywhere and cars roll by non-stop. As I stand on my front stoop, I see Michael Giles walk out of his apartment building. Oh boy! here we go. “Hey Mike! what’s up?” Mike looks up at me and says “wanna play caps?” Immediately I run down the steps and we go across the way to the rubbles that once was an apartment building. We walk around looking for bottle caps. “Here’s one!” mike yells out. We walk over behind a large mound that would conceal our activities from the street and Mike pulls out a couple of matches and some wax. We melt the wax into the caps to give them some weight.

We spent the afternoon playing and flicking caps. At approximately six pm my mom yells out “Pablo, time to come in an eat!” so I say good by to Mike and throw in “Oh, by the way I am moving away forever on Friday. See you later.” As I run off Mike yells out “Excellent, I can come and visit you in Jersey during the summer break!”

Wow! this landed like a tons of bricks. I was not expecting “visit you in Jersey during Summer break.” I don’t know why but that did not sit well with me. How am I going to do a clean break if he is coming to visit? I don’t know why I needed a clean break. Maybe it’s the excitement of starting anew – OR – it just me not wanting to hurt every time I leave a friend behind. See I felt as a piece of me has been cut off and it hurts so bad. I didn’t want to hurt again.

See we’ve moved a few times. When we left Ecuador I left friends and family behind. When we moved here from Queens, I left friends behind. Or maybe it has something to do with leaving my two youngest sisters is Ecuador and we came here for a better life. Why can’t they have a ‘better life’ as well? I know I cried a lot when that happened. I felt as I have lost my sisters for ever. At the time I did not know that we would be seeing them again.