The night I was born, it was raining heavily. The Bob Marley song “Kaya” was playing in the hospital, with the lyrics “Got to have Kaya now, for the rain is pouring.” Since it fit the situation so perfectly, and my parents had always liked the name, it became mine. I think naming me Kaya was a pinpoint that began my unique life, that and the fact that through all of my parent’s divorces and split ups and remarries and moves, altogether I’ve lived in 13 different houses in only 14 years. The year I was born, my college-age parents lived in a small two-bedroom apartment in a place called Gateway Apartments. My mother said I came out silent, not a single cry. I was extremely observant, staring at everyone in the room with wide eyes.

I developed quicker than most babies. I was reading words and writing at age 2, and began writing full creative stories and reading books with little to no pictures by age 4. I potty trained myself at around 3, and whenever my parents tried to intervene I would demand privacy. I still have memories from when I started preschool, I would always try to write the date at the top of my journal entries and the teachers would come around and laugh at me when they checked it. They would stamp over it even though I got it right every time.

I think a big reason why I was so mature is that I was around adults almost 24/7. Since my parents were both still in college when I was born, my mom was 21 and my dad was 20. They couldn’t afford a full time daycare and tuition and living expenses all together, so I often went to classes with my mom. She majored in journalism, so I tagged along to all the writing classes as a young toddler. She tells me I sat there eating Cheerios, looking intently at the professor.

After I was born we only lived in the apartment for about 3 months, and we then moved into a slightly bigger but still small house on Brighton Street. Shortly after we moved there, I experienced my first dramatic hospital trip. My mom had gotten out the phone book to look up a number. She was sitting on the couch and I was on the floor, next to the book. In the middle of talking she heard a giant rip, and later choking noises. She hung up and turned to see that I had ripped the front cover off and somehow managed to swallow the entire thing. She swiped it out of my throat, but for the rest of the night I was still nonstop coughing. She was very worried about it and took me to the emergency room. The doctor said he would need to take an X-Ray of my lungs. But to take an X-Ray, one has to be perfectly still, and as an uncomfortable baby I was extremely squirmy. Much to my mother’s dismay, I was squeezed in a plastic tube with my arms held above me and my legs below, with my head turned to one side. That remains the first of many crazy hospital trips to come.

At age 2 I was put into dance classes, which I’m thankful for every day. I went to a studio called Columbia Dance Academy, that hasn’t been there for years after I left. I started simply with ballet and tap, but when I was about 5 I went to a studio called Dancearts, where I still am at now. Ever since I can remember, I’ve always been known as the non-athletic one. I’ve been told many times I would have nothing going for me if I couldn’t dance. Not that I mind at all though, seeing as from the day I started to now, I’ve been in love with it. No matter where I am, I always wish I was at the studio instead. I probably try harder and focus more during dance than I do at school.

During my father’s senior year of college my parents split up for a little while and my mother moved out into another apartment. I met one of my first friends there. Her name was Hannah, and I still have memories of playing with her in our front yards. That was my first experience of switching back at forth between houses, which would later happen my whole life.
When my dad graduated college, my parents got back together again and he moved into the apartment with my mom and I.
The summer after I turned 3 was when my parents were married, even though they had been together on and off since 8th grade and all through high school and college. A few months later we all moved together into a house by a big church, where my brother Josh was born. The earliest memory I have of my brother includes another choking episode like my own. He was still an infant, and he sat in his highchair drinking milk while I was eating my macaroni and blueberries. My mother left the room for a few seconds and when she came back I was shoving blueberries into his mouth nonstop, and he was definitely choking. She grabbed them all out of his mouth and made him drink.

“Kaya! What were you thinking? He’s an infant, he can’t chew food.”

My response was simply, “He was hungry and I wanted to share.”

We had a great relationship until he was old enough to talk, and throw things at my head. He would get angry whenever I was sad and he would start crying when I did. If my mom was scolding me he would be mad at her. He would never admit it nowadays but he sure was protective. Once he grew up though, his favorite hobby turned from looking out for me to looking for things to throw at me.
After about a year, we moved to a nice, bigger house around the Derby Ridge area when my father got a job teaching at that elementary school. As a family my parents, brother, and I lived there together for 3 years. Then my parents split up again, but this time it was the divorce and it was final. My mom moved out into a duplex, where we lived through most of my kindergarten and first grade years. Most people wonder how much trauma a divorce caused me at so young, but honestly I didn’t know it was any different than other families. To me, it has always been weird that the majority of kids have married parents and live in one house. Basically divorce meant at least 8 Christmases a year.
I turned 7, my mother remarried to a man named Chip, and we moved once again to a house out in the country. He had two kids, Calen and Ian. Ian was a year older than me and we became very close over the years. Calen was 5 years older than me and I looked up to her as an older sister. Ian and I made a big deal out of leaving my little brother out all the time. My brother would do something, anything, and we would order him to leave.

“Stop looking at me like that. You’re so annoying and mean to me.” I would say.

He would respond, “I didn’t do anything! I’ve just been sitting here this whole time.”

Then Ian would join in. “Get out. It’s my room and you’re being mean to Kaya so leave.”

That was pretty much how our days went, in the years when we were younger.
That ended up being the house I lived in for the longest. That same year my dad got a new job teaching 4th grade at Grant Elementary School, and he moved into a house with us across the street from the Stephens College dorms.
My mom and step-dad split up for a very short amount of time, and they weren’t even divorced, but the 3 of us moved into a cozy little house by Grindstone Park. It wasn’t even a full year until we moved back in with my step-dad and his kids. During that time my dad bought another house near downtown. We lived there with him for 4 years until he got engaged and moved with his fiancé and us into a house way out in the country, on the opposite side of town from my mom. They were married that summer and we all still live there now.
The beginning of 8th grade my mom and step-dad were divorced. My mom, brother, and I moved into a house in Cherry Hill. I loved it because for the first time I actually knew people in our neighborhood and I could walk to many of my friends’ houses. Sadly, like most of my houses, we were only there for about a year until we moved for the 13th and last time (so far) into a similar house by Smithton.
13 houses in 14 years are more than anyone I know. I think it is one of the things that sparked my need for change. I can’t stand things that are constant. I am not scared of change like a lot of people are, but I enjoy it for the most part. Even now that my dad and step-mom have finally settled in, they are already talking about moving back into the city as soon as this summer.
All the unique experiences I have obtained through the years make me pretty different from any one of my friends. I’ve gone through a lot of hard things that some people couldn’t understand, but it’s what has given me such a carefree look on things and made me so adaptable to change. I can truly say I appreciate all of it, and I will carry a little bit of everything with me forever.