It all started with concrete, I guess, so the fact that I’m hurtling towards it through my own fault now is fitting. The hospital walls were made of the stuff, and soaked in my crying and my mother’s crying and probably my father’s too, even though he’d never admit it. Those walls were one of the first to see my little baby face, and when I opened my eyes sometime later they were the first things I saw, too.
Then they drove me home and propped me up on the kitchen table in that apartment complex, rising up above downtown, a concrete haven to those not yet with the income to buy a real place. But I loved that miniature house, the tiny rooms, the compact kitchen, my parents’ and my little concrete palace that saw me run about, shrieking with joy and youth. In that apartment, I grew closer and closer to the top of the doorframe. My first day of school, my first spelling bee, my first middle school boyfriend. My parents and I would gather around the thick-backed television at night, watching reality shows and picking favorites. I was happy then, they were happy then; they loved each other in our matchbox of a home.
But the mac-and-cheese TV dinners weren’t enough for my mother; my dad and I weren’t enough for my mother. She traded my Bob Dylan-loving father and outdoor staircase and concrete for a banker and a picket fence and wood floors. The cozy space became a stone cave, always dark and lacking air. We moped about for a couple months and held our breath with every footstep in the hallway, thinking she had fled back, thinking she missed us. We had never been fancy, but at least we had been stable. Before she went and did the bad thing that was “better for us all,” we were solid and strong and real, at least.
She didn’t come back, though. I can’t say I wasn’t surprised. It freaked my dad out, though, and he couldn’t bear to live in the apartment for any longer—he wanted to leave my home. I woke up in the middle of the night and he was packing up boxes; “We’re leaving, too,” he said simply, so I got up and swathed my snow globes in bubble wrap. 
The realtor lady brought us to the new place we were supposed to love. There were only two of us now, so naturally our extra money was used to buy a bigger house. My dad faked a big grin and gave me a thumbs up but I saw his nose pinching up and that always means he’s about to cry and he went inside the house and left me in the front yard. I stared up at the cold, unfriendly monster. It was made of brick. 
Eventually, he brought a new woman home that wasn’t my mother. I didn’t like her much. Her hair was shiny and her teeth white, but her eyes were as hard as concrete.
So now here I was, staring down at the slab below me that didn’t necessarily look welcoming but friendlier than the life I had to go back to. I saw myself inside of it. I was concrete. I started off warm and flowing, absolutely bubbling with energy and hope. But they turned me to stone, zapped away the movement, the liveliness. I was strong and could support any weight. I was cold. I was hard.
They say from ashes to ashes, but I think concrete would be more fitting. I took a breath.