Contrast Essay

     My Mom's side of the family has lived in Texas their whole lives, my grandparents, and probably earlier, to my aunts and uncles. And my Dad's side of the family has lived in Maine their whole lives, again grandparents to my Dad. When my dad was 18 he joined he army and was station in Fort Worth Texas, some months later I guess he met my mom, I'm not really sure how exactly they met. The whole dating situation and falling in love thing is foggy in my memory, I'm sure my parents told me at one time but I can't remember. But they ended up getting together and when my Mom was 20 and my Dad was 22 they got married. They were moved over to Germany where my Dad was re-stationed and a few months later m sister, Kacey, was born. They lived in German for a few years before my dad was station back at Fort Hood, and a few months after that he was discharged. The question came up, where were the going to live now? My Dad was from Maine, and had no wishes to leave, and my mom was from Texas and didn't really want to move across the country, but she, of course, ended up giving in and to Maine they went. I've lived in Maine my whole life, and almost every summer my mom, sister and I travel down to Texas for 2 weeks to visit our family. Over the years I have fallen in love with the state and the people whole live their, not just my family.
     First let me start with the rain storms, now it’s pretty obvious that Texas weather and Maine weather are very different. The rainstorms, I’ve noticed, seem to be the most different, well; at least to me they seem the most different. Rainstorms aren’t as frequent in Texas as they are here in Maine, and the storms that Texas does get seem almost magical. The lightening shoots down in crooked lines from the sky, never fracturing off into branches like the lightening up here. It’s an amazing sight; the thunder is so much louder too. It rumbles through the sky and shakes foundations, but it never sounds scary. I can remember nights when I would just stare out of the large sliding glass doors in the guest bedroom. Watching the sky light up with the crooked lines of lightening, feeling the house shake with the rumble of the thunder. The storms were never as violent down there as they get up here. I remember nights of hiding under my covers, struggling to push the sound of the angry thunder and the loud lashing of the daggers of rain the tried to pierce the windows. The sky turned so bright with the thousands of lightening branches sprouting all over. I’m not sure why the storms up here scared me so much, and the storms down there didn’t. Maybe it was because I felt safer there than I did back home. I never had to deal with mean people in school, or my parents fighting. For a couple weeks my life seemed perfect.
      My family is also very different, my dad’s side of the family all live up here, and my mom’s side of the family all live down in TX. My Maine family is pretty mellow, and they all pretty much work outside. My dad works driving heavy equipment at Hardwood Products in Guilford; my Bumpa drove heavy equipment before he retired. My aunt went to college and teaches now, so she kind of stands out in the family. My mom works as a patient rep. in the Martin’s Point healthcare office in Bangor, and the rest of her family works at offices or are self employed. My Texas family fights a lot, there’s always someone mad at someone else. I guess you would think that this would hinder me from wanting to be around them, but it doesn’t. They always try to not let whatever’s going on at that time affect our visit. I get sick of all the drama sometimes, when it begins to feel like I’m back at school anyways. As much as I love my family that lives down south, I don’t know if I would be able to handle all of the fighting all the time. I take after my Nana, my dad’s mom, that way, I hate drama, and it wears me out. While my family up here may not always get along, and my parents may fight more often now, it’s never as prevalent as it is with my mom’s family.
        The last difference is that there is so much more to do in Texas, than there is to do up here. You may be saying, ah yeah no crap, but you never really know just how much more there is to do in Texas if you’ve never been. There’s pretty much something for everyone, tons of museums on everything from cowboys and rangers, to mammoth remains. There are a bunch of different theme parks too, water parks like, and I may spell this very wrong, Schlitterbaun and Sea World, to Six Flags Fiesta. You can travel down to San Antonio and go on the River Walk and then to the Alamo, both places are, in my opinion, too beautiful for words. Or you can go down to the coast and stick your feet into the chilly yet warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. I know that I sound like one of those travel commercials, but it’s all true. I’ll admit that Maine looks beautiful with all the snow covering the ground and trees, and that the coast is too remarkable for words. I have had a lot of fun times up here, the coast is one of the most memorable things I’ve ever seen; and I love to go down to Portland for concerts. I love the York Zoo, and Shirley holds so many wonderful memories from my childhood, but I can honestly say that besides my family and very close friends, and the snow, if I were to move to Texas right now, I wouldn’t feel like I was being deprived of anything.
      There have been many times when I have decided that I’ve had enough of the weather and people and scenery up here. Times when I just want to leave and never come back; never look back. Then there are times when I can never think about leaving, times when the air becomes so still and the snow seems to be floating down. Times when I can see almost every star in the sky outside of my bedroom window, something I can’t do at my grandparents house in Bellmead, Texas. Though I yearn to live in a much larger and more exciting state, that has a more controlled climate, I can’t really imagine leaving Maine, and never coming back.