moving to america 1

so we moved to america, from england. the year i'm told was 1995. perhaps even 1996. but the story was, my folks were living with me and my sister in a place called blackburn lancashire in england, a place in there called beardwood park, in a cul de sac, down the road from my friend sammy and neena's.

so at the time i was goign to a school called Queen Elizabeth's Grammer School. It was a uniformed school, and apparently over 600 years old. the grounds sure looked it, not for lack of being taken care of, but more in the sense that the old stone looked aged, and the hall where we dined was more like a churc. there were hymns too, ever morning we'd take our yellow prayer books and sing our hymns. I remember it being yellow having found a copy of one years later. I also found an old swimming cap, in my old bedroom, when i visted the old house when i was seventeen, with my father, in my old cupboard, and on the windows were my old thomas the tank engine curtains.

these are the sorts of things you come across when you visit home after many years.

but back to the move, we moved quite suddenly. i didn't get much warning, i'm not sure iw as told more than once, andi don't think it ever really registered that most of those people i was never going to see again. so it came as sort of a sad shock to me that when we arrived in chicago things weren't quite as good as they had been in england. no more green trees, old schools, and friendly friends. gone were the old farms and our cozy cul de sac. and gone were my friends whom some i'd known since age 2, other who'd known me since birth. this was the cradle of my childhood, and it was gone, forever to be warped and damaged, never to be quite as good as it once was.

we moved to chicago, to a suburb in chicago to be precise, a place called skokie, and this is where we lived, first among one aunt, and then another, then finally with a place of our own. eventually so im told i returned to england and my sister and mother reminaed, so i was away from half my family for a year or more.

after chicago's jaunt, and the england return, there was but one major move left, from england to ohio - this would be my home for the next forteen years at it happened, though i'd never have guessed it at the time. we moved by car, my uncles old oldsmobile, from chicago, out to ohio. first in a hotel, econo lodge, then in an apartment, stonebridge, and finally a house, colonial drive. these were all moves made towards getting settled in ohio. i went through a variety of schools whist there, main for two weeks, fairbrook for two years, ankeney for one, mvs for five. again working on getting settled, only it took me a good through years before i finally did get somewhat settled in.

however three years wasn't enough time to undo the damage done in the moves prior, and i remained a quiet child, whislt having been quite the contrary overseas. i had lost too much, and not gained back enough to be what i once was.