Unpacking the Last Cardboard Box

In May 2020, my family packed our lives into little cardboard boxes and moved ten minutes away into a new home sitting on a cul-de-sac. The home was one of many new builds in a tiny wooded residential area, where other small families were slowly moving in. On a particular chilly afternoon, I said one final goodbye to the home I had spent most of my adolescence and a fraction of my adulthood in. In this house, we had celebrated numerous birthdays, welcomed new life while simultaneously saying farewell to it. The floorboards creaked under my feet as I slowly tiptoed throughout the empty rooms. Little trinkets that were long forgotten under the coach, now sat in the open, covered in dust bunnies and crumbs. My dad and I grabbed the remaining knick knacks and hopped into his car. While he drove away my eyes were fixed on the little green house with black shutters. My new bedroom was an unfamiliar place, filled with dusty cardboard boxes and unarranged furniture. The rest of the house was in a similar manner; dining room chairs were placed in front of the TV while trash bags filled with winter coats occupied the mudroom corner. The windows in my room were a lot taller, allowing sunlight to spill onto the new carpets. Downstairs, the sound of my sister’s little feet and my baby brother’s giggles echoed throughout the rooms. They finally had enough space to run around as my baby brother began to have confidence crawling. It’s been over a year since we’ve settled into the unfamiliar place. My baby brother now bolts around the house while my sister sits on the couch, glued to her tablet. What once was an empty house with random boxes and misplaced furniture, is now a lived-in home with a junk drawer filled with dried-out pens and old letters, and a worn-out “welcome home” mat by the main entrance.