Coast to Coast--Arhem

Overall, my life has been pretty good and actually quite straightforward. I have a great family, many of my friends are the same ones from middle school, and I live life comfortably. There is one event in my life, however, that has had a profound impact on who I am today; a chapter in my story that I will never forget. This is the story of my time living in Richmond, Virginia. To begin this story, we have to go back to February 2012, about the middle of the 8th grade school year. Our dad had just delivered us the news that at the end of the school year, we'd be moving to Virginia. I was… well, I couldn't identify what I felt. I was upset to be leaving my life long friends and our beautiful home, but I also couldn't deny I felt a nervous excitement about moving to the other side of the country. I was never angry at my father for the decision to move, since it was for his job, but the thought of such a huge adjustment coming up made me immensely anxious. June that year snuck up pretty quickly, a little too quickly for me. I told all my friends in March, so everybody had time to mentally prepare for it, but that didn't make the final goodbyes any easier. I tried to laugh off the sadness I felt, because I really believed this would be the last time I saw these people again. Hell, before we finally hit the road to drive to Virginia, we ate at InNOut, just to remember the taste before we left for good. After about a few hours, we had officially left California behind. People always say that the first day of freshman year is terrible. For me to say I was nervous for my first day would be an understatement. I was set to attend Deep Run High School, one of the best public high schools in Virginia, but I was absolutely petrified. The thing is, Virginia was completely different from California, and I don't respond very well to big changes. The first big change I had to deal with were the actual people: the area where I lived in was about 95% white. And keep in mind, these people still had confederate flags on their trucks and outside their houses, so you can imagine how I felt. And with Virginia being part of the South, a lot of people had a Southern accent, so I knew that I would immediately stand out in school, and this agitated me. The night before the first day, I could not sleep because I kept dreaming up worstcase scenarios and was mortified at the prospect of going to this completely new environment in a completely different place. On that first day, I was just so nervous. The only thing I said that day was “here”, in response to the teachers, and I didn't make eye contact with any of the other students. At lunch, I sat by myself, something that I never had to experience before. As freshman year went on, I made a couple of friends and came to like a few of my teachers, but I missed California, badly. A lot of nights I went to sleep dreaming up scenarios of me going back and being with my friends again. Sophomore and junior year, my time at Deep Run was much better. I had become close friends with four other guys, Spencer, Bryce, Griffin, and Ben. I joined the basketball team, I joined some other clubs, and I began to embrace the area and the Virginia lifestyle. The school that I originally dreaded coming to, I was already prepared to call myself an alumni of. The state that I wanted to leave so desperately, I was ready to attend a college of. I grew to love the area that I disliked, and reflecting on those 3 years I learned a valuable lesson. Life is never straightforward. Life throws curveballs at you, and you have to adapt in order to succeed and find happiness in life's craziness. As I'm writing this, I'm back at Etiwanda High School with all my friends from middle school, and I'm about to attend UC Riverside. Reflecting on my three years in Virginia has shown me that, no matter where life takes me, I will be ready to face the challenges and succeed in the situation I'm put in. Life has a different plan for us, and we can't do anything but look at it from a positive perspective and trust that everything will work itself out.