As I pulled my old beat up truck onto I-10 I couldn't help but look in the rear view mirror one last time to get a glimpse of what I was leaving behind. There was nothing about Phoenix that I would miss, everything that I had once loved about this place now served as nothing more than a waking nightmare full of my own personal ghosts. What I once considered to be my oasis in the desert now just seemed like a mirage. If I stayed there any longer I was sure that I would never be able to move on or live my life, there were too many reminders of all that had happened in the last year and all I wanted was to move on. I knew it would be the hardest thing I would ever have to do, but I also knew it would be a good thing.
The day I decided to leave Phoenix I had no clue where I would move to. The only family I had left was my mother, but moving to Florida to be near her and Phil was the last thing I was going to do. I had stopped relying on my mom for support 12 years ago when we first moved to Phoenix. Without my dad in the picture I had to learn how to take care of myself and my mom, something no 13 year old should ever have to do. I had still loved my mom when we moved to Phoenix, but over the years, and especially when I moved out to go to ASU, I slowly started to realize how little I actually meant to her. Even when we still lived in the same city I hardly ever spoke to her and when she married Phil and started her "real" family, I knew that I had lost her completely.
I almost relied on a game of darts to decide where I would move to once I left Phoenix. Tape a map to the wall, close my eyes, and throw. When I closed my eyes and aimed towards what I hoped was the map I had a glimpse of my life before we moved to Phoenix. I saw my dad Charlie sitting on a dock fishing while my mom and I sat underneath a tree eating lunch. I dropped the dart when my dad's face came into view, it had been so long since I had really thought about him, let alone saw him. He had his fishing grin on, his biggest smile second only to when he was smiling at me, and it made the small wrinkles around his eyes stand out. His eyes, identical to mine, staring back at me made me think twice about all the decisions I had made the night before. He would want me to stay where I loved, he would want me to live the life I had made for myself, he would want me to be happy. And when I realized all of that I had to think how Phoenix and my life fit into what my dad had always wanted for me. I didn't love Phoenix anymore, I hated waking up in this city everyday. The life I had made for myself had crumbled around me months ago, and I hadn't truly been happy in just as long. Seeing my father and the memories of the time when I still lived with him made up my mind on where I would move to. He may not be there anymore, but I could only hope that being close to those happy memories might actually be exactly what I needed.
So I spent the entire day finding pawn shops that would buy everything I owned, and bringing what they wouldn't buy to the dumpster. I hardly paid attention to what I got rid of, and what little I kept. All I knew was that I wanted all of it gone, I wanted no reminders of the life I lived in Phoenix. Before I knew it I had one small box of books, two suitcases of clothes, and a few pictures from my childhood to bring with me on the road. I hadn't intended to leave myself with so little, but when I started cleaning out my apartment I went on auto pilot and couldn't stop myself from trashing literally everything. I was surprised at how easy it was for me to throw my life away. There were no tears, not angry outburst, no broken glass. I simply picked everything up and threw it all out. The fact that I had given up on my life months ago and felt all of the emotions then could have been the reason, but more than that I think it was the prospect of something more that kept me going that day. By the time I was ready to leave for good I had enough money to live off of for six months, and my life packed away in one corner of my truck bed. Looking at what was left of my life I couldn't help but feel pathetic, lost, and completely alone. I had lost everything that meant anything to me in my life.
Looking in my rear view mirror now I realized that I had been trapped in the past for too long. There was nothing left for me here, no matter how long I had tried to fix everything that went wrong there was no way to fix what had happened to me. I had been carrying around the blame from too many people for too long. No matter what I did, no matter what I said, no one would see me for who I really was. I had reached that point in my life where all I could see in my future was the years passing by and leaving me in their wake. I knew that I could never live that way and all that was left for me to do was to watch the city pass by in my rear view mirror as I headed out of Phoenix and towards the cloud-covered rainy days that awaited me in Forks.