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| Get Up and Stay
It was the time for her to get on with it. Jen had lived in this house for most of her life, but it was now time to change. She would be moving to Bakersfield. Not all that far away, just far enough that she would no longer be dependent. And she still wouldnt be independent. That would be a characteristic that would ultimately come through making all the wrong decisions.
She is still carrying boxes out to her car, small mementos that will just clutter up her apartment. The things she needs she cant take with her, Jen still doesnt know what she is getting herself into now.
Her little brother Chuck is still playing some video game. Their parents told him to help her, but he didnt pay much attention. He never listened. He never had listened. It seemed he would never listen. But Jen would be away from his non-listening ears soon enough.
Their parents were supportive. Or at least they only objected silently. They helped with the boxes. There were stacks already in the car, more still remained. All of her life packaged into one load of a Buick Regal, it didnt say a whole lot about who she ought to be. Only a few items left, in a few more hours she would be gone and they would start turning her room into a home gym.
She walks into the room. It is white. It is empty. And it now holds nothing that it once had. It is an empty shell, one of the splendors it once beheld. Not that it was anything great. White walls, white shelves, a white dresser, and a small closet are the only definition remaining of her past. She sees emptiness, not much left to take away. She spots a picture turned over on her dresser. She walks over to see what it might be, whether or not it would be worth saving. She picks it up and turns it over. In it she sees the old image of herself and Chuck. It was years back when they were little. They had gone to Colorado during the summer to visit their great aunt. They had gone fishing and in the picture Chuck was holding a dead fish while Jen looks disgusted by just the simple look of the cursed thing. It had been a good ten years back in her memory, barely far enough to see glimpses of what happened.
It was a warm summer afternoon in the magnificent mountains of Colorado. Or maybe it was a humid, skin blistering evening that seemed to go on without end. Chuck had just caught a fish. He was very proud of it. But he still didnt want to touch it; so he got his dad to pull out the hook. Jen caught a fish too. It was quite large, and she didnt want to watch the fish squirm on the deck, let alone touch it. Their dad took the fish to be cleaned and cooked. Then they all sat down to eat at a rotten picnic table. Jen still wouldnt touch the fish.
To this day she wouldnt touch fish. That had been a time long remembered, one more day to keep a hold of her past. She took the picture and threw it into a box next to the door. What was left to pack? She didnt want to miss anything. But she would inevitably miss something, and she knew it. She walked over to her closet. The doors still creaked every time she opened those doors. It was nothing but empty. It still held all the clothes she would never again wear. There were still some notebooks that she had kept from her high school classes. She wouldnt need any of those. Her books piled in a corner begged to be explored. She grabbed them and one by one pulled each one off the top. There were books about poetry, science, and philosophy. There were childrens books and romance novels. As she pulled another book off the pile she realized what she held in her hand. It was Depend on Katie John, the one book she had been given. She received it as a Christmas present years ago. She must have read it a thousand times since then. Even the first time remained with her.
It was a crisp winter morn. The Christmas carols played on the radio in a far away room. The eggnog was already starting to go bad in the fridge. But thats not what Christmas was about. Christmas was and always will be about the presents. Back then they only really had to put effort into presents for Jen. Chuck was still a toddler and his favorite toy would be the box that the $500 play set came in.
Go ahead and open any gift you want Jen, said her mother with little urgency in her voice; it was still early. Jen quickly grabbed the biggest box in the pile. She ripped open the paper and saw her very own easy bake oven. She opened more presents that day; she got more and more stuff to play with. The last gift was small. Still excited from her previous gifts, she ripped open the paper and found a book. She was disappointed to say the least. She threw it to the side in a tantrum of rage.
Dont you like your gift dear? said her father. Why dont you give it a chance. He handed it to her and she opened it up. After that day she never put it down. It would be the book that made her enjoy reading.
She threw that in the same box as the picture. There didnt seem to be anything left. She grabbed the box and headed out the door. But as she walked down she saw an even older picture. It was one of her grandmother. She died about twelve years ago. They had been quite close at the end. Those were the days when she would have stayed with her family by choice. Back when she would miss them before she left.
Back in the day that showed how a family could stay together. Every Sunday grandma would cook a big feast. There were mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, carrots, and roast beef. Grandma always used to butter Jens bread for her. It was wheat bread. She hated wheat bread, but she loved her grandmother. Everybody was there. There were cousins that came in from a couple hours drive away. There were aunts and uncles she didnt even know. But no matter how many people showed up, Grandma always had enough food for everybody. It was like everybody always had a place at her table. She kept the family together over strawberry-rhubarb pie. Those were the days.
She looked back into her box and walked toward her room. She proceeded to put things back on the white shelves. Just then her mother walked in the room,
What are you doing Jen? she asked with sincere confusion.
I am getting ready to come back home after I leave. It would not yet be her time to leave entirely. She loved these people. She couldnt give that up. She knew that the more stuff she left, the better reason she has to come back.
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