I was born and raised in West Virginia and reluctantly made the decision to stay and attend an institution here, so I wouldn’t have to pay too much money for out-of-state tuition. The summer before I attended Concord University, my family was making serious plans to move to Texas. This wasn’t much of a shock to me, because moving away was something that they have discussed for years, but it was never practical for them. They talked about it some more between my junior and senior years of high school, but they decided that they would wait until I graduated before they would make that kind of a move.

As graduation approached, the decision about moving came up again. My dad (he is technically my step-dad, but I still look to him as my other dad) is a truck driver for a company that had a terminal located in the Houston area that he could transfer to. He would be paid more money for runs down there and they knew that they would make a better living if they made the move. I guess you could say that they moved out of West Virginia for the same reasons everyone else does: nothing fun to do, very little opportunities, a high cost of living-- basically, they were tired of living in such a poor state where they could barely pay their bills. Not to mention, they would have nothing to look forward to when they grew older, because they knew that my sister and I would leave the state ourselves, eventually.

So right after my mom helped me move into my dorm at Concord two weeks later they were loading up the moving truck. When I tell people my parents moved away when I started college, I usually get reactions like, “What a rip-off,” or “Well, they just left you hanging, didn’t they?” I can definitely understand why they would look at it that way, but it was actually one of the best things that they could have done for me, and here are the reasons:

I have became more self-sufficient.

My college is located about an hour and a half from my hometown, so if my parents still lived there, I could have easily gone home to them every weekend if I wanted. Even though I told myself that I wouldn’t be like one of those college students that couldn’t stand being away from their parents for more than a week, it is very easy to go home and cry to “mommy and daddy” when you have problems that you don’t want to deal with. Since I never had that option, I had to face those problems head-on and not run away from them. I had to rely on the people and the resources that were around me to help deal with them, since my parents were 12,000 miles away. Of course, I still call my mom for any advice I may need, but I don’t have the option to just run back home to her whenever I want. If I had that option, I would have never broken away from my parents to handle things on my own and take of myself.

I don’t have to worry about returning to my hometown for the summers.

I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I hated my hometown, HATED IT. Before the moving plans were officially set, I knew that one thing that I would dread was coming home for the summers when college ended each year. I would be working the same job as I did in high school, living in the same house, seeing the same people, and doing the exact same thing as I did. I knew that I would have to leave the life that I built at college for a little while and revert back to my childhood one. Since my parents no longer live in my hometown, I have no reason to go back. I spend my summers with family in Huntington and visit my parents in Texas during Christmas and spring breaks.

I have my own life.

There are times when I see some of my sorority sisters’ parents come visit during homecoming and Greek Week or when other people’s parents are there to help them move on move-in and move-out days; and yes, a part of me wishes that mine still lived here so that I could share that part of my life with them; but in the end I am glad that this part of my life is just mine and doesn’t concern my immediate family. This particular time in my life, which happens to be college, belongs to just me and it is something that I can enjoy on my own, which makes me feel more liberated and independent.

I have grown closer with my family that is still here.

Like I mentioned in number one, I have learned to gravitate toward others around me instead of relying on just my parents for support. Whenever I want to get away for campus for a weekend or need some place to go to spend Thanksgivings and Easters with, I usually spend some time with my grandparents, my real dad, aunts, cousins, and so forth. Most of these relatives didn’t live close to where I grew up, so I have actually visited with them more in college than what I was able to as a kid. This also gives me the chance to spend more time with them before I leave West Virginia myself.

They have helped pave the way for my future.

This is probably the greatest reason why my parent move was great thing for me. I have known since I was very young that I wanted to move one somewhere bigger and better than West Virginia, and Texas was definitely a state that I had always considered-- and my parents knew that too. So contrary to what most people would assume about this situation, my parents didn’t just “leave me hanging”, my best interest was also considered in their final decision. When I graduate college, I will have a place to go until I get back on my feet to find a job and an apartment of my own and my parents’ residence in Texas will establish my own residence, so I will have in-state tuition for any law school that I attend down there. Moving away to another state is not easy financially or emotionally, but I am blessed that I will have family support to where I will be moving to and I will not be alone.

I am enjoying my own little independent college life in the meantime, but I look forward to building the life that I will have in the future when college is over, and I’m glad that my parents will be there to help me do it. They may have missed out on some of my life as a college student, but that has helped me grow stronger over the years. They will also be a part of the life that I build for myself when I settle to where I want to be in the long-run … So good move, Mom and Dad!