The Move

It was really happening; we were moving. I had lived in Salt Lake City, Utah ever since I was five years old, and now I was leaving it. We were moving to Cairo, Egypt. My parents had talked about it for the past few years. Every year they said, “We’re moving this time;” it never happened. But now it was settled, we were leaving in the beginning of May. When I thought of Egypt, I thought of pyramids, pharaohs, camels, and tents. It wasn’t somewhere I would ever think to live in; maybe I’d go there for a vacation, but live there… I don’t think so. Regardless, we were moving there, so I figured I’d have to learn to accept it. I had to accept that I was soon leaving the place I had called home; I was leaving the comfort of being surrounded by friends and family to an unfamiliar place in which I knew no soul. Not only would I not know a soul, but I would also not be able to communicate with anyone. They would speak Arabic, which I did not understand one bit.
I was a junior in high school, so it was a little upsetting to know that I wouldn’t be able to graduate with my friends whom I’d grown up with and known most of my life. When I told my friends that I was leaving, they simply didn’t believe me. They just brushed it off as a false alarm. Since it didn’t come to pass the last three times I had given them the “oh- my- god -I’m- moving- to- Cairo” alarm, they didn’t think this time would be any different. Of course, this year was different. This time, it was real. The reality of it gave off a stench that was hard to ignore. I mean, who were they kidding? More importantly, why was I kidding myself? We all saw the emptiness of what was our home; we saw that every last piece of furniture was gone. A lot of it was sold; the rest was given away to friends and relatives alike. It was all gone to the last hanging on the wall, to the last bowl in the kitchen cabinet. There was no evidence of the home my parents had filled with expensive furniture and décor, no evidence of the...