By: Imani Primus
Covid had completely taken control of the invisible plans 14-year-old me had. That summer in Atlanta was supposed to be different. It was the summer before high school, and in my head, it was my one chance to change everything about myself. I didn’t have it written down anywhere, but I knew exactly what I wanted. I was going to be more outgoing, have more friends, go out more, and stop being the quiet girl who followed every rule without questioning it. I wasn’t trying to become someone fake, just a version of myself that people actually noticed. Someone who didn’t feel invisible in every room she walked into. That was my invisible plan, and I had fully convinced myself that high school was where it would finally happen. The Primus household, though, didn’t really match that plan. It was strict, structured, and full of limits. My mom was the type to say no before even thinking about saying yes, and everything had conditions attached to it. I always felt like I had to ask permission just to exist, like there was a right way to do everything and I was always one step away from doing it wrong. So, in my mind, high school wasn’t just school—it was my reset. It was where I could finally step into a different version of myself without constantly feeling watched or controlled.
Right before my birthday, I got the one thing that made that plan feel real—an iPhone. Growing up, having a phone was one thing, but not having an iPhone made you stand out in the worst way. It was one of those things that shouldn’t matter as much as it did, but it did anyway. I had been asking for one since the beginning of middle school, and even though my parents had given me other phones before, it never felt the same. This one felt like access. Like I was finally stepping into the same world as everyone else. Even with the restrictions my dad put on it, it still meant something to me. It meant group chats, social media, being included in conversations I used to hear about after the fact. It made me feel like I wasn’t as behind anymore, like I could finally keep up. That same day, my cousin Amiyah came over and asked me to sleep over. We didn’t see each other often, but we were close in age, and being around her always felt easy, like I didn’t have to think too much about how I was acting.
Her house felt like Disneyland to me in a way I don’t think she ever fully understood. The second I walked in, everything felt louder, more alive. The TV was already on, something playing in the background, and there was music coming from somewhere else in the house. It wasn’t quiet, it wasn’t controlled, and nobody seemed to be paying attention to what we were doing every second. I remember pausing for a second near the door, just taking it in, because it felt so different from what I was used to. When she asked if I was hungry, she didn’t wait for a real answer before heading to the kitchen and grabbing a bag of Takis and a Coke, handing them to me like it was the most normal thing in the world. I remember laughing a little and asking, “This is what y’all eat?” and she just looked at me like I was the weird one and said, “Yes.” At my house, that wouldn’t even be a question. There was always a right time to eat, a right thing to eat, and definitely limits. But here, there were none. No one was telling us “that’s enough” or “you already had that.” It felt small, but to me it meant everything.
We went back to her room and immediately got comfortable, sitting however we wanted, phones already in our hands, talking over each other, laughing without thinking about it. It didn’t feel like I had to be careful about what I said or how I acted. At one point she asked me if I was ready for high school, and I said yeah, but not in a confident way. There was still hesitation in it. When she asked if I was going to stay quiet like before, I paused for a second and then said no. It was a simple answer, but it felt bigger than that. It was the first time I had actually said my invisible plan out loud, even if I didn’t explain all of it. Being in that moment, in that house, made it feel possible. Like I could actually follow through with it. We stayed up late that night, way later than I would’ve been allowed at home, just talking about everything—people we knew, what high school was going to be like, who we thought we were going to become. It all felt so close, like it was right there waiting for us. And for once, I didn’t feel behind or restricted. I just felt normal. I felt free, and that feeling stayed with me longer than I expected.
The next day started off normal. I was still in that sleepover mindset, tired but comfortable, not really thinking about anything beyond the moment I was in. When my dad came to pick me up, I got in the car and went straight to my phone without thinking, still holding onto that same energy from the night before. At first, the drive didn’t feel strange, just quiet in a way I didn’t question. But the longer we drove, the more noticeable it became. There was no music playing, no small talk, just the low hum of the car moving forward. I remember looking up briefly, glancing out the window, noticing how still everything felt, but I didn’t think too much about it. I just went back to my phone, still mentally at Amiyah’s house, still holding onto that feeling of freedom and possibility. That feeling followed me all the way up to the front door.
And then it stopped.
The second I stepped inside, everything felt wrong. The house didn’t feel like my house anymore. There were boxes everywhere, stacked in places that used to feel familiar. The walls were bare, the furniture was gone, and everything looked like it had been taken apart piece by piece. It wasn’t messy—it was organized, which somehow made it even more confusing. For a moment, my brain couldn’t process what I was looking at. I just stood there, trying to match what I was seeing with what I thought I knew. My first thought was that something had happened, like we had been robbed, but it didn’t make sense. It didn’t look like something that had gone wrong. It looked like something that had been planned.
That’s when my parents told me we were moving. Not eventually, not something to think about later, but in a few days. To Massachusetts. They had talked about moving before, but it was always in a distant, almost imaginary way that never felt serious. So hearing it like that, while standing in a house that was already halfway gone, didn’t feel real. It felt like I had missed something important, like everyone else had been preparing for this while I was busy making plans that didn’t even matter anymore.
That’s when everything connected in the worst way.
My invisible plan, the one I had built up in my head all summer, only worked in Georgia. It depended on the people I knew, the environment I understood, and the version of me that already existed there. I had imagined walking into high school already slightly different, already stepping into that new version of myself, but that version was tied to everything I was about to leave behind. Now I wasn’t just starting high school, I was starting over completely. No familiar faces, no understanding of how things worked, no version of myself to build off of. The plan didn’t just get interrupted—it disappeared.
I went to my room, but it didn’t feel like mine anymore. My bed was taken apart, my things were packed away, and there was nothing left that felt stable or recognizable. I sat on the floor, not even crying at first, just trying to process what had just happened. It wasn’t just the move that hurt, it was the timing, it was the fact that I had finally started to believe I could become someone different. Before I even got the chance to try, everything around me changed. The next few days passed quickly, filled with packing, throwing things away, and trying to figure out what mattered enough to keep. I told a few people I was moving, but it didn’t feel like a real goodbye. It felt temporary, even though I knew it wasn’t.
The drive to Massachusetts made everything more real. The further we got from Georgia, the more I could feel that version of my life slipping away. Everything started to look different—the houses, the roads, even the feeling in the air. When we finally got there, I felt completely out of place. Nothing was familiar, and no one knew me. Looking back, that’s what made it so hard. It wasn’t just leaving a place. It was losing the version of myself I thought I was about to become. At 14, it felt like everything had been taken from me, but in reality, my life was just changing. I just didn’t realize yet that starting over didn’t mean losing myself completely. It meant I had to figure out who I was going to be without the plan I thought I needed—and that was something I wasn’t ready for, but something I had no choice but to face.