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Writer: Camilla Egeberg I moved into a foster home when I was thirteen years old, just before starting secondary school. That summer, I was going to start living life in a completely different place with completely unfamiliar people. It was a strange experience, but the move itself went relatively painlessly as I remember it. I packed a lot of boxes with my things in the back of a small car and was driven a long way to my new home. It felt a bit like I was going on vacation, just like my mother had said to the neighbors when they saw all the boxes we put in the car. Vacation... I was to be placed voluntarily and temporarily, and as I understood it, I was to return home within a year. The word from CPS was that a lot of work would be done to sort out the situation so that I would eventually be able to move back home... but life is like that sometimes, one year turns into six. I visited the foster home for the first time 2-3 weeks before I moved in. I sat in the car on the way there with mixed feelings, I was sad, relieved and nervous at the same time. I had fantasized several times before about suddenly waking up somewhere completely different from home and I remember wondering if this place would reflect that fantasy. After an hour or so, the car rolled into the courtyard of the new home and I could conclude that this was something completely different from my vision. This was gigantic, an entire farmhouse to be exact. I had traveled from a block of flats and ended up on a farmhouse idyllically located down by the river. I couldn't believe it was possible to live in such a big place! They also had horses, sheep, dogs and cats (and a mouse here and there). Of course it was absolutely fantastic, but the only thing I could think of was where on earth I was going to find the shopping center, and that from now on I was going to stink of sheep. We had gotten out of the car and taken a walk around the farm. As I remember it, my foster mom was late (which I soon learned she always was) so we walked towards the house where my foster father was waiting. He opened the door for us and looked completely different from what I had imagined. Authoritarian, powerful and a bit stern in his features, but when he smiled he didn't seem too scary. We were invited in (the child protection lady, my mom and I) and I remember suddenly getting a strange and uncomfortable feeling. I actually think it wasn't until that moment that I realized what was actually going to happen, that from now on I would be living here in this strange house with strange people and that I would no longer be at home with my mom. I remember feeling like an intruder. A misplaced, intrusive person who was suddenly going to come and live in the home of strangers. And I remember thinking how unfair it was to feel that way when I didn't even want to be here.
Also, they were some strange people, my foster mom had finally arrived and she was talking and laughing in one set while my foster dad sat shaking his head and sighing to himself. They were nice people. They were weird, but at least they showed who they really were and that was reassuring. This is how I remember my first encounter with the foster home, lots of impressions, energetic, scary, exciting and confusing. Over the years I've come to realize that my foster parents are even weirder than I first thought, but thankfully they are the best foster parents I could ever hope to roll into the courtyard of.
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