Sunday Scribblings- Crossing Water

This week's Sunday Scribblings prompt is:

When in your life did you feel the most powerful? Was it childhood? College? Now? What is that feeling like; what does it mean? Do you have power over your own life, or are you not feeling that so much these days? If you don't want to get serious, you might imagine superhero powers, and what you would do with them.

At first I thought I would write about being pregnant with my daughters. Both times I felt incredibly powerful and special (look at me, I'm creating life here!). But in the end, I am going to go with the time I moved to Houston. At once terrifying and exhilarating, it was the point when I truly became a grown up. At 31, months after my first marriage ended in divorce, I left my island and all my family behind to move to Houston with my 2 year-old daughter. To be truthful, it's not like I was jumping without a safety net. I was coming here on a work relocation offer, to a job that paid more and had more responsibility.

I had some help moving here. All my moving expenses were paid, and the company even paid for an apartment hunting trip. I made arrangements online with a dealership in Houston to buy a car. The person I replaced shared with me the name of the Early Childhood Center her daughter attended. My parents kept Paula and took a flight to bring her to me two weeks after I had moved, so I could have time to get everything set up.

I moved into my apartment the day I arrived in Houston, on Friday March 31st, 2000. My stuff had arrived a few days earlier and the movers were set to bring it in the next day. So far so good, I was impressed by how smoothly things were going. The next day I got sick and was puking my brains out while the movers were bringing in my stuff. I do not know if it was something I ate or if it was my nerves playing some kind of April Fool's joke on me, but the next day I was OK.

My move to Houston was the single most empowering thing I have done. It changed my life. It forced me to truly rely on myself, to be the strong one. I would not have it any other way.