Moving, By Tyler Mosley, Age 11

When I found out we were moving, the pressure was on for me. It was hard enough just to tell my friends that I was leaving. It was even harder just to tell my best friend.

I was extremely sad in many ways. What made me even more sad was that I could only bring a little amount of my stuff on the plane. We gave most of our belongings to our relatives. Then, when the sign was put up for our house to be sold, we left for the airport.

When we left the house, it broke my heart to leave my friends and family behind. The way it broke my heart was that I had played with all my friends since I was just two years old.

Just to get to the airport was about two hours long because of the traffic. As we drove to the parking lot, there were many cars parked outside the airport. Most of them were mini vans and regular sized vans. As I went into the airport, it felt like the world was smaller because of how many people were at the airport. Many people spoke of where they were going or where they came from. People spoke different languages, which was weird to me because I only knew English back then. What I thought was even weirder was when I tried to talk like the other people, I would get tongue twisters or it would tickle my lips. I tried to speak like the other people who did not speak English. Standing in line, I said my last good-byes in person to my relatives. As we got on the plane, I sat right next to the window to wave to my relatives getting into their car, but unfortunately for me they didn't wave back. The plane was crowded with many people and the only thing that satisfied me was that I got to sit next to the window and my family. To me, it was boring on the plane. I tried my best at entertaining myself. I looked out the window and thought about the animals and plants and what they look like from the air. After what felt like an hour, but was really only thirty minutes, I got bored again. I got up to stretch my legs and other body parts, and then I sat on the chair and went to sleep.

As soon as I fell asleep, they announced that we had arrived at Tokyo, which got me pretty mad because I was tired. As we got off our plane, they checked our passports and stamped them. When we were inside the airport in Tokyo, we did the same thing we did before—just sit and wait for our plane. My parents thought that I would ask if we could see the sites or see the shops, but I was too sleepy to even move. So I went to go sit next to the window where the planes took off.

Ten minutes into watching the planes taking off, I fell asleep. I snoozed for an hour. I could have slept even longer, but we had to get in line to go to Okinawa. We were served food on the plane to Okinawa. I only ate a little amount of food because I was sleepy. The ride was at least three or four hours long.

When we got to Okinawa, I felt like a cheetah running at one hundred miles per hour, but somehow I still felt sad inside. I tried to forget about the past, but it was almost too hard. I tried my best to forget about it. We went to get our bags and I saw many different faces and people. I felt very weird. I tried my best to blend in, but the more I tried, the more I felt weird.

When we got out of the airport, it felt like a totally different world to me. As we got outside, I saw some words. They were hard to read, but I found out how to say them. They were pronounced "Naha Airport.” After that, we got a cab to go down south of the island. There were many new things that I had never seen before. We got a room in a hotel on Camp Foster. The room was just the right size for me. When I got off base to see some of the Japanese culture, I met some Japanese children and American children just my age. That made it easier to live there and let go of the past. I will always remember my friends and family members in America by heart. I was happy to be living in Okinawa. I'm still happy living in Okinawa to this day, but I will never forget about my homeland, America!