I’m Moving to Boise, Idaho
It’s funny how, just when you feel secure and happy with life (for the most part), you get dealt some crushing blow that breaks it all apart. I learned about this at the beginning of this month, and I’ve found it hard to concentrate on anything ever since. I need to vent. Before I do, however, I should note that there is about a 20% chance that I won’t have to move at all, a 60% chance that I will move before second semester (in January 2005), and a 20% chance that I will finish this school year and move during the summer. So not all is lost. But even an 80% chance is too high.
When I first heard about this, my first thought was to take it in stride, be optimistic about it, hope that it would turn into a good thing. But after about a week or two, reality caught up, and I began to fear for my survival. To be metaphorical, moving is like this:
There is a sheet of construction paper that has been subdivided with a marker into several parts: Brett, school, friends, work. The move is symbolized by a clumsy toddler coming by and tearing off the Brett portion of the paper, chewing it up, and spitting it back out along with some drool. I am now in pieces. In Boise, I am pieced back together with duck tape. Unfortunately, duck tape is big and the pieces are small, but the wielder of said tape is insensitive and mean and has decided to simply wrap the Brett leftovers in a wad of tape formed into roughly the shape I was in before. And then I am joined with glue to a new piece of paper, with a different school, friends, and work on it.
What does all this mean? It means that, by moving, I am literally being torn apart. I don’t mean to be all dramatic with it, but it’s the truth. And after enduring the tearing and pain, I am pieced back together in the wrong order with too much adhesive. In other words, I will no longer be the same person I once was, and all the deep and thought-provoking things about myself will be gone, obscured by layers of tape. And then what will happen? To most people, moving probably isn’t that big of a deal, but this will not only change my life for the two years I’ll be in Boise before college - it will change my life for years, perhaps even decades to come. Why? Because I’ll be at another school, in another state, more than likely one that just isn’t as good as CSHS as far as AP and other advanced courses go. It is not only my present that is in jeopardy here, but also my future.
I guess I should clarify that bit about the deep and thought-provoking part of me that will be gone. What I mean by this is that, after five years of living in Arizona, I had finally become completely and entirely an Arizonan. I love 110-degree heat and the feeling of walking into an oven on those days when a hot breeze stirs the dry air. I find cacti and sunsets beautiful. I don’t know how to ski or snowboard (though I went in Utah a few times). And in the last few years, I have discovered me. I am no longer just some random kid; I am Brett. I like programming, working with computers, reading and writing in both Spanish and English, learning about history and economics, multiplying matrices, speech and debate, going to movies with friends, playing video games, traveling, watching the stock market, drinking bottled water from the tap on my refrigerator, bread and cheese, my cat, most of my teachers….
All of these things became a part of me not in Springfield, Missouri, not in Salt Lake City, but here. I have spent the most important five years of my life thus far in the same house on the same street with the same kids. And I have come to like it. More so than I thought I did until the threat of moving became a possibility. I think the biggest psychological impact of the threat of moving is not the challenges it will pose once I’m in Boise, but rather the feeling of disconnection that has plagued me since first hearing about it. So soon after having my summer of unhappy thoughts, after which I finally found meaning again, that meaning has been swept away once more. No, I won’t descend back into melancholia, but the sudden feeling of separation, of aloofness, is almost unbearable. What is the point of trying to improve my existence in Arizona if I know that it will all be gone in a few months’ time? I would almost rather move on a moment’s notice than have to somehow go on with it looming above me every waking moment.
This move also brings to light the internal struggle between work and play. Arizona is play. Here, I have friends, some semblance of a life, extracurricular activities to attend and work for, a job (sort of), a school that I know and am familiar with, etc. But to move to Boise will also mean moving to a work-oriented life. I will have no friends, no extracurricular activities, no life, nothing. And I will have little incentive to try to have any of these things, because I’ll just have to move again when I go to college two years after I move to Boise. Living in Idaho will become nothing but a blip, like Utah. In Utah, I had friends, but none of those friendships ran all that deep. I knew people, and they knew me, and we slept over and did things together, but we didn’t really know each other like I know Jim or Tyler or Dylan. It took five years to arrive at where I am now; I doubt I can do the same thing in two, especially in high school where friends are harder to come by since many friendships are so deeply ingrained from earlier years.
The only real perk to moving is that I will hopefully be attending a technology magnet school rather than a regular high school. And while this sounds great, it falls in the work category. The only reason I want to go there is that I want to better my programming skills and eventually my skillset that I will use later in life in my various technology careers. It has nothing to do with the social climate at the school or the other courses offered. And I’m not sure if I like that.
But I need to go and be interred into my bed now; I’ll definitely be writing about this later, especially after I visit Boise during Fall Break (10/22-10/25).
Mostacholi.