July 2002 – Columbia ILL
My family has made the decision to move; not just somewhere else in Illinois or even St. Louis, but all the way across the country. I will be ripped out of the most comfortable spot I have ever been in my entire life and thrown into an alien environment, with no friends or relatives, besides by parents, to console me. All of my older siblings will be left here, in their comfortable niche of Southern Illinois.
My mother and father are going to drag me out west to a town in northern Nevada called Sparks where a job awaits my father. My father is a toxicologist and has directed tox. studies for Monsanto for twenty long years, until the company merged with another pharmaceutical company called Pharmacia. This is when Monsanto was forced to let my dad go; thus far, he has had no job offers from any pharmaceutical companies in the St. Louis area.
I have lived in Southern Illinois for my entire life, and I don’t know anything else (perhaps the cause of my reluctance to leave). I was born in Belleville, Illinois and I lived in a town a little south of Belleville called Millstadt for eight years. When my older brother, Chris, was about to enter high school, we moved to Columbia, fearing that Belleville West Township High School would have a bad influence on my brother.
To this day, I sit in my beloved house in Columbia, looking out the open windows and seeing the never-ending farm fields and meadows. I listen to the mocking bird atop my chimney and watch the barn swallows swoop in and out of the cracks in my deck, making a nest they have made every year since my family built this house. I breathe in the thick, humid air that is tinted with the sweet fragrance of honey suckle, and I realize I’m not ready to leave.
I walk into the house and memories flood my mind. All of the tough times and good times are sparked in my memory just by looking in the kitchen. This is the room where my duck, Cheerio, died; where I learned my sister was pregnant; where I learned my mom had cancer; where I learned my mom was in remission. This is the room where my brother-in-law, sister, niece, brother, mother, father, and I ate supper, sometimes in silence and dismay, and sometimes in laughter and great conversation.
As I work on homework assignments on the computer in the study, I’m reminded of my school. Governor French Academy is where I’ve been taught some of the most valuable lessons of my life. This is the school where so many teachers have impacted my way of thinking as well as my entire life. I am convinced that teachers at this school are like no other teachers in the world. No where else has any teacher gone out of their way to help me learn.
This school is where I have made the most fulfilling, worthwhile friendships. As I sit and listen to guitar playing at lunch, giggling at break with my friends, or even smirking at lame jokes certain teachers dispense everyday, I realize this is what I’ll miss the most. I’ll miss the insane comments of the headmaster, going out to lunch with my closest friends, and having an informal sing-along with twenty other kids, all off-key, while one kid plays the guitar. This is when I realize that this school is one of kind.
After school, I sit in my room relaxing. I remember playing dress up with my cousin and pretending with my niece; the sleepovers I have had with my friends, and some of the most enlightening conversations ever. This is when I realize, change happens. It doesn’t matter where or how you live, sooner or later everything changes. That change is what life is all about. Whether or not this change will be for the better or for the worse is for you alone to decide.
I feel now that my time in Southern Illinois is a mark that will be left here for eternity, the trees and flowers I have helped plant in my yard will all serve as contributions I’ve made. Perhaps I have done all I have to do here, and it is time for me to move on. Maybe there is something waiting for me in Nevada, something that needs me more than Illinois.
I will be moving to Sparks, Nevada this summer. I will be picking up my life here and starting anew in the West. Whether or not this is a bad thing, is up to me to decide. The worst situation can be turned into the best time of your life if you just look at it from the right perspective.
