If I could go back in time to two years ago, I would tell myself to ‘buckle up and get ready for the ride.’ The reason is because freshmen Kennedey hadn’t seen any of this coming. Freshman Kennedey would still be in St. Louis visiting her dad every other weekend. Freshman Kennedey would have been overwhelmed with the two advanced classes she was in. Freshman Kennedey would finally be accepting the fact that my two brothers who had always been there since as long as I could remember were off at college. I would never have imagined myself living in Olathe, going to the church I go to every single Sunday, and writing a 750-word paper for my English teacher. If this sounds bitter in any way then I didn’t mean for it to. If anything, this just shows just how life can come in and flip everything twenty different ways leaving you to do one simple thing. Move on.

I’m not going to sugar coat the emotions I experienced while moving simply because it sucked. First came denial. I denied, then did it some more. When people say “denial is the first stage of acceptance” they couldn't be any more right. It first started with petty things like how for some odd reason my mom thought that the Kansas City Royals were better than the St. Louis Cardinals. Or how I could see my family in Columbia Missouri more often (which isn’t true because it takes the same amount of time to get to Columbia from both directions.) It quickly escalated to the point where anything beyond Columbia Missouri did not exist to me. Any trips my mom took out there I would fake a big project that required me to stay in St. Louis. She would intentionally buy me concert tickets to venues in Kansas City so I would “fall in love with the city and WANT to move there.” I made sure to show her all the friends I had made in high school at the school, and I tried giving her reasons for me to just stay and live with my dad. When none of that worked, I moved onto the second stage. Anger.

Anger is something I don’t like dealing with. I don’t try to incorporate it into my daily or monthly life. However, this time was an exception. I was livid. It had finally had friends that I could have a Saturday night bonfire with and reasons to go to Homecoming each year. I was not happy about that when things in my life had finally started to look up in my life, I was being dragged to “Middle of Nowhere” Kansas. Like I had mentioned my anger never lasted long; so this paragraph not only skips forward a couple of months but skips on to the next step. Depression.

Technically the “Five Stages of Acceptance” has it listed as depression and detachment. I totally did both. I didn’t go outside, partly because it is somehow colder in Kansas, and also, I didn’t want to. My routine for Winter Break was simple: wake up, stumble downstairs, make myself breakfast, walk to the window, cry internally because I didn’t know where I was, glare at my mom, trek myself back upstairs to crawl into my bed, then do it all over again for every meal. by the beginning of February, I had lost the majority of contact with my supposed friends which is how the detachment factored itself in. The only thing I gained from that period in life was: I watched the majority of the shows I had wanted to watch on Netflix. In my mind, I had hit rock bottom, and I figured my only way up was to go to the next step. Bargaining.

Now two things about this step: first, it may be out of order from most acceptance sites, but it was my process and second, it wasn’t much to bargain with. I initially wanted to return to St. Louis once a month to see my dad, and whatever friends I had left. However it didn't work and to this day, I return there once every two to three months. The last step came around March 2015 and it was of course acceptance.

I find the fact that the last step happening in spring is very symbolic. Spring represents new beginnings and rebirth, and that is what happened to me. I may not always loved the move, but I also will never hate it. If I had not moved, then I wouldn't have the group of friends through church, access to some great BBQ, a second favorite MLB team, and such an awesome and SUPER fantastic junior year English Teacher.
So if I could go back in time to a year ago, I would simply tell myself ‘Everything will be fine.’