The Serial Movers
Jennifer Zapata
May 2, 2013
Trevor Dodge
Writing 121
The Serial Movers “I don’t want too! Seriously Dad, why are we always doing this?! It’s not fair! I don’t want to leave my new friends! They just started liking me!” I scream as loud as my eleven year old lungs will let me. “You will make new friends, you always do! Stop complaining, you’re just a kid. Let the adults handle this.” My dad groans as he heaves up a thoroughly used-to-many-times box. “Come on sweetheart, we are almost done, go put your sisters in the u-haul.” My mother says with a frown. The angry swelling in my heart, I grab my sisters and shout “Why can’t we be a normal family and not move all the time!” This was a glimpse of one of the twenty-three times the Zapata family moved, from the time I was born, to the time I graduated high school. There are many traits and attributes that define a persons’ family. You may have a very traditional family where everyone comes together for meals or a family in society’s eyes that are non-traditional, such as a family with two mothers or two fathers. From a distance, my family seemed normal: Father and mother, older half brother, and two younger sisters, and the occasional pet. My father worked as a concrete truck driver for most of my childhood, and my mother was a stay at home mom. Oh, did I mention the part where we are serial movers? The definition of “serial” is something arranged in a series. I adopted this term to describe my family on move number eleven. Yes, it took me eleven moves to come up with this catchy title. Move number eleven was one of the strangest moves we did. We were living in Oakland, California and my dad was working as a maintenance tech for an apartment complex. We only lived there for about six months before my parents got their ‘moving fever’. This was one of the more scary places I remember living in. The apartments were not in a safe area, and all around us seemed to be drug deals and
May 2, 2013
Trevor Dodge
Writing 121
The Serial Movers “I don’t want too! Seriously Dad, why are we always doing this?! It’s not fair! I don’t want to leave my new friends! They just started liking me!” I scream as loud as my eleven year old lungs will let me. “You will make new friends, you always do! Stop complaining, you’re just a kid. Let the adults handle this.” My dad groans as he heaves up a thoroughly used-to-many-times box. “Come on sweetheart, we are almost done, go put your sisters in the u-haul.” My mother says with a frown. The angry swelling in my heart, I grab my sisters and shout “Why can’t we be a normal family and not move all the time!” This was a glimpse of one of the twenty-three times the Zapata family moved, from the time I was born, to the time I graduated high school. There are many traits and attributes that define a persons’ family. You may have a very traditional family where everyone comes together for meals or a family in society’s eyes that are non-traditional, such as a family with two mothers or two fathers. From a distance, my family seemed normal: Father and mother, older half brother, and two younger sisters, and the occasional pet. My father worked as a concrete truck driver for most of my childhood, and my mother was a stay at home mom. Oh, did I mention the part where we are serial movers? The definition of “serial” is something arranged in a series. I adopted this term to describe my family on move number eleven. Yes, it took me eleven moves to come up with this catchy title. Move number eleven was one of the strangest moves we did. We were living in Oakland, California and my dad was working as a maintenance tech for an apartment complex. We only lived there for about six months before my parents got their ‘moving fever’. This was one of the more scary places I remember living in. The apartments were not in a safe area, and all around us seemed to be drug deals and