Part 2

Continuing where I left off from last week, I moved to Virginia, and lived with one of my Father's sisters, and went to school with all of my cousins. It is a funny thing being a Katrina refugee, everybody treated me as though I had a 'Handle with Care' sign on my forehead, I love to make jokes and laugh and be part of things, but whenever I would walk into a conversation, the laughing would stop, their faces turned more serious, I guess they thought that I was manic depressive and that any sign of sunlight or laughter would throw me into fits of crying and depressed rage. This is not true, and most people who are coping with things of this nature, I find them to want to laugh again, want to go back to normal.

One person refrained from treating me this way, and to this day, we are best friends. She has moved even farther away from me now and attends College in Maryland. The first day we met was in French Class on the first day of my attendance at that school, and she was the first student to strike up a conversation with me, besides the courteous pleasantries that are offered to all who find themselves in the path of discourse. We began to talk about where we had come from, I soon discovered that she was almost as new at this school as I was, her family had just relocated at the end of July and this was her first few weeks at this school. Soon after, we started talking about our interests and our families and our pets and everything else that you could talk about. We grew much closer over the next few months and have created a friendship that has stood many tests and bumps and countless hours of travel time. No matter how much time we spend apart, we are always just as good friends, we have been separated more and more each year, but we are still great friends. 

At the end of the semester, my school had opened back up and so I was to return and start there. Actually, this wasn't my school, I had attended a private school before the storm, but because of travel time and money, I had to start at the public school in my city. It was a new and old experience for me, I had gone through some of elementary and middle school with these people, but I hadn't seen most of them in years, and plus I didn't even remember most of them. I found my niche in the choir room, among the piano, the music, and that indescribable dynamic that musicians share with each other, I found solitude. That is over now, after many trips, contests, tours, and an overseas journey, I walked the stage and am here now in my dorm room at Mississippi College.