Narrative

Friday night sports games, bonfires, fishing and hunting was the summary of my weekends before I made a life changing decision of moving to the city. I grew up in a small town, the population around 4,000 people and the only big thing about our town was the farmland. Although I enjoyed growing up there and I am very happy I did, I felt like I was trapped. Everyone knew me and everything about me and everybody else in the town. So I decided to leave behind my friends and family and move 3 hours away to Columbus.

Unlike most people in my hometown, I wanted to make something of my life. My parents did not finish college and that didn’t seem like the path I wanted to follow. My parents weren’t in my life much so I never had them to look up to but I knew what I wanted in life and I knew I couldn’t get it there. It was like I was expected to do what everyone else wanted, I was drowning in their wants and didn’t think about myself until I had to make the choice, and my time was up. The outlook on it sounds a little bit cliché and like it could come from a teenage book, small town girl moves to the city. But this was my story that I was making my reality. I decided on Columbus because in the end if I didn’t like it I was still close enough to go home if I wanted to. Sometimes I think I could have just joined the military and followed in my sisters’ footsteps and do what everyone had expected me to, but I was never typically the one to do the expected. My dream is to go to college and make something out of myself. I want to follow my dreams of making money, not to be greedy or rich, but to travel the world. I want to go to any and every country possible, the small ones that nobody has heard of and the big ones that everyone knows rich or poor, I want to be there. I guess this move to Columbus could also be considered traveling, I never thought I would actually do it. I always thought about my future as a kid and thought I would always be like the girls on TV and somehow stay with all my friends and everything would work out just how I wanted it to. I thought I would go through college and start a family and have an average job and average life, but as I got older and reality hit harder I really thought about what I wanted in life and knew I could only achieve that by moving and making what I wanted to happen, happen.

My life changed the day I moved. I didn’t have the comfort of my friends and family, I didn’t even know how to get to the nearest gas station. But I knew why I left all that behind and I knew why I made the choices I did. I do not have kids yet but when I do I want to be able to tell them about the things I have done and be proud of it. I want to tell them to follow their dreams and that they can do it, because I did. Moving only three hours away may not seem like a life changing event for some people, but for me it was. I was only eighteen and I was going alone, most teenagers go off to college but I wasn’t going to stay in a dorm with roommates, I was going into a big city alone and without the protection and security of a dorm room and the normal college life. The moment I knew I would make the move I had mixed emotions, I was excited but I was also scared that maybe it would be a mistake and one that would be hard to fix. In the end I knew it was something I have wanted to do and in order to achieve what I wanted to achieve in life I needed out of that small town and into a place where I could make it all happen. I have definitely worked hard for this in many aspects such as working in a factory all summer to save up enough money and working hard in school to make this all come true, which I am confident it will.