Welcome To Alabama

The drive down to Alabama was long. I remember being so upset as I sat in the back of the van my mom had driven. I remember thinking “Boyz II Men will never find me in Alabama. Where all the country people live.” My ideas about Alabama were very immature in nature. I thought of uneducated, mountain-living, racist people who lived in small towns that spit tobacco as they spoke with their unintelligible accents. I did not want to be a part of that life at all. I just knew that when I graduated high school, I was moving back to Cleveland. I mean I only had two years to go. Surely it will fly by and I would be far away from old country Alabama and my evil mom and stepfather.

When we finally made it to the hotel in Alabama that we were going to be staying in for a week while waiting on our double-wide trailer to be fully set up. I got out of the van and was hit with the hottest and most humid air I had ever felt on my face. The sun was bright and blinding. And true I was not unfamiliar with the sun, but it just hit different down in Alabama. My eyes burned and watered. I remember walking up to my mom convinced that if I showed her how watered my eyes were, that she would not make me live here. I said, “See mom, I can’t live here, this sun and air hurts my eyes.” She kept walking and did not respond. I walked into the hotel, and then to my room. (I didn’t mind staying at the hotel for that week. It felt like a vacation.) I laid down on to the bed and turned the tv on to see Will Smith’s Men In Black video playing on TRL. It had just come out. I will never forget that. I will always associate that song with my first day in Alabama.

When the week was up, we were able to move into our double-wide trailer that my stepfather had picked out. I remember being quite surprised by how nice it was on the inside. Up until this point every place, I had ever lived in was an old, and unkept mess. When you first walked into the trailer, there was a really nice entryway with a hall closet. To the right of the entryway was the large-sized living room with a fireplace that connected to a hall that had two bedrooms and a bathroom off of it. I had never lived in a place with a fireplace. (My Great Aunt who lived in Berea Ohio was the only person who had a fireplace, and she was rich. So, I had always associated fireplaces with rich people.) To the left of the entryway was the dining room that had built-in shelves with a mirror in the middle that connected them. To the right of the wall of shelves was my mom and stepfather’s bedroom. The room was huge. Bigger than any of the other bedrooms she had ever had. The bathroom connected to her room was also big and beautiful. The shower and tub who were separate were so nice. I remember thinking that this was the fanciest bathroom I had ever seen. And feeling slightly jealous after seeing it. Wishing that my bathroom on the other end of the house looked like this too. The kitchen, also connected to the dining room via the other side of the room, was big. With a window that looked out onto the trailer next door. The laundry room separated by a doorway in the kitchen housed the back door. (Which was the door that my brother and I would use with a key to get into the house from walking home from the bus stop.)

After moving into the trailer, I remembered feeling quite optimistic about the move to Alabama. The house was nice and felt fresh. Which was something I really needed. The trailer park itself sat alongside this beautiful lake called Lay Lake. I naturally recharge when being in nature, so living next to this lake brought me much peace. The town we moved to was called Shelby, and it was located about 20 minutes away from the nearest town with a grocery store or any store really. To say this small town was rural, was quite an understatement. I didn’t mind that though. After living in Olmsted Falls, and getting used to being away from the big city, this small town felt ok. 

It was very slow and quiet in this small town, in this trailer, next to the big, beautiful lake. I kept myself busy that summer while my mom and stepfather worked almost an hour away by watching a lot of tv. And writing letters back and forth with my friends up north. The highlight of my weeks would be when I would receive a letter in the mail from one of my friends from Ohio. I remember when I would write them back, my letters were always full of questions about what they were doing, how they were doing, and what were other people we knew were doing? Because quite honestly, nothing was going on with me in this new town.

I remember being really excited about starting school that year, I couldn’t wait to make new friends, and not feel so alone anymore. I remember one afternoon before school started, my mom and stepfather took me to see the new school I would be going to. It was in the small town next to ours with the grocery store, and it was super cute. Not quite as nice as Olmsted Falls High School, but it was still nice. The small town next to ours was called Columbiana and it felt very home-like. The downtown had all the cute little boutique shops. With people walking up and down the sidewalks stopping to speak to each other. It was really the cute little quintessential southern town that you see in all the movies. Which made me even more excited about starting school. I longed for community. 

It’s funny looking back over that first summer in Alabama. I remember being excited about school and new friends, but also very ready to move back to Cleveland once I graduated in the next two years. Not even realizing that I would never leave, because God had bigger and better plans than I could have ever had for myself.