Wrangler Dani

It was a long line of units with orange roofs and steel roll-up doors, sitting on the edge of town with a large sign boasting discount rates. The space between the lines of storage lockers was filled with sharp gray rocks – not small enough to be considered gravel and not large enough to be impassible, just tough on our knees if we fell down.

Everything we owned was pushed into two units, boxes stacked on top of  furniture, tables arranged ingeniusly to make the most of our tiny real estate. Beloved stuffed animals and board games shared space with books and Pyrex, piled next to tool boxes and a sewing machine, all of the stuff of a normal suburban life, now locked up for who-knows-how-long. We’d moved from a sweet little house on a cul-de-sac to an empty piece of rural land with a travel trailer and a dream.  It had all sounded like a magnificent adventure until this moment, until I realized that everything about my old life was about to be locked up in this weird compound of materialism.

All of a sudden, I didn’t want the possibility of a horse of my own or a dog, the promises of an outdoorsy, rural life that this aggressive move had been based on. I just wanted plush carpet under my knees instead of these rocks, I wanted my books lined up on shelf and not pushed in a box, I didn’t want my dolls and toys to have to wait in the dark for me to come back for them.

My dad pulled the door down, and I heard the lock click on everything we owned. I felt homeless.