January 9, 1995

Around this afternoon was when I over-heard Dad talking on the phone after he had been out all day. He said he and mom were thinking of moving to somewhere in the state of Virginia, and that we would need help packing up all our belongings and furniture for the next few weeks. I.. was pretty unsure about the idea of moving to another state and putting my things into boxes. After Dad hung up, I asked him what was going on. He told me that we were going to be living in a brand new place soon, and that I needed to decide on which books, two toys, etc that I would like to take with me on the plane. I got a little scared because that meant the rest of my stuff would be packed away in boxes. "B-b-but what about m-my other s-s-stuff?.." I stammered out. "Don't be silly, pumpkin! You'll see all your toys and books again once we move into our home in Virginia," he said as he patted my helmet. So after a while of thinking, I decided to take my tiger puppet, a stuffed jaguar doll, some clothes, a sketch book, and a few of my ZooBooks, preemptively packing them into a suit case.

The day after the next day a bunch of people came to our house with lots of boxes, much to my stupid fear of strangers. I ran upstairs and hid in my closet for most of the day as they packed up all the content of the living room, dining room and kitchen and hoisted them into the back of their movers van. The shrill ripping of the boxing tape was an assault to my ears, like someone was noisily crunching on rye chips inside my eardrums. At one point, I began rocking back and forth, loudly tapping my helmet with my finger nails to try and calm myself, until i had eventually made myself fall asleep.

Once they had finally left, I came out of my room to find that all the non-furniture stuff was gone from the living room, and so was the silverware. Luckily, Dad thought ahead and bought plastic silverware for us. I hadn't eaten all day but was too scared to come out of my closet the whole time. But once the movers left, I rushed downstairs and made myself a bologna and pepper jack sandwich. I typically hated when my stomach felt empty because it reminded me of being starved by my previous father, so I wolfed my sandwich down, then grabbed a plastic red cup and poured some apple juice inside, taking careful swigs without spilling a drop. I knew the people would return several times, but all I cared about at the moment was my full stomach.

January 13th-20th, 1995

Once the house had been completely emptied, we temporarily moved into a motel after we got our passports. My parents informed me ahead of time that we would be traveling to Virginia by plane. I was actually a bit excited as I had never flown before, and a bit curious.

On the final night of our stay, we ordered pizza and drinks before Javier and I fell asleep while Keaton and my parents watched the news. They, too, soon fell asleep, not wanting to miss our flight tomorrow.

January 21st, 1995

Once we arrived at the airport, we went through the typical steps someone takes before boarding the plane, such as having our baggage scanned, showing our pass ports and IDs, screening, etcetera. We then waited a few hours as I struggled to stay awake until they announced the boarding of our flight.

We entered the plane, along with a bunch of other folks. It was a bit crowded as we walked to our seats and placed our luggage in the cargo above, so I squeezed my Dad's big, strong hand the whole time until we took our seats. A couple of minutes after the flight attendant stated the rules, the plane gradually fired up, and the next thing I knew, we were taken down the runway as I felt the plane start to rumble. The jets of the plane roared as we began to ascend off the runway. Ain't gonna lie, with this being my first time on an airplane, I was shakin' like a leaf. I could feel every hair on my body sticking straight up off every inch of me. Thank the stars I was sittin' right next to my Daddy. No matter how scared I was, he always knew how to make me feel safe. I whimpered softly and hugged him tight until we were completely up in the air. I gazed out my window as we passed above the clouds, which I found entertaining.. until I looked down. Then I hugged my dad again.

Around 2.5 hours later, we landed at the airport in Virginia. I sluggishly followed my family out of the plane and into the building where we claimed our baggage and used the restroom. An hour later we were driven by a taxi to yet ANOTHER motel, where we stayed for another couple of weeks until the house we were moving into had been completely cleared out by its previous owners.

February 5th, 1995

We got a rental car and soon stopped at a fast food joint on our way to the new house; a place called the Rusty Burger. They had REALLY good fries, but what made me and my stomach happiest was a bacon-cheeseburger with barbecue sauce, pickles, and extra bacon, and I ate it all up! My inner carnivore needed to be pacified after the flight, I guess.

Our house was located in a suburban type of neighborhood, so there were a lot of blocks and a lot of big houses. I even saw one house that had a ginormous tree house coming out the top, but we'll get to that another time.

The inside of the new house was even larger than our previous home; there were atleast three bathrooms and four bedrooms. And instead of two stories, there were three! Mom went necessity shopping, bringing home juice, bread, sandwich stuff, pizza rolls and instant Ramen for meals, and ice cream for dessert. This night, we set up inflatable mattresses to sleep on. However, I felt it hard to manage an inflatable mattress, as I had a difficult time keeping the darn thing still while either laying down or getting up from it. Thankfully we got normal mattresses in a few short days.

One night, I lay on my mattress under my blanket, my mind wandering as it usually does at night over the music coming from my radio: what will this place be like? What was school like? What will the kids and teachers think of me?.. so many "what if's" were racing through my damaged head.. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to prevent myself from having a panic attack. I then simply turned the radio up and gradually fell asleep..