Personal Narrative: Moving To Michigan

I haven’t always lived in Michigan. Before I moved here in in fifth grade, I lived in Tennessee, Florida, and Wisconsin. Because I have lived in many different places, I have experienced and learned many different things in many ways. In Florida, I had a pool and was 15 minutes from the beach, and thus lived a life of carefree swimming and outdoor time. When I moved to Wisconsin there was a stark change in how my days played out. Gone were the times of carefree swimming and shorts year-round, and in came the days of snow-shoveling, learning how to put on a jacket and boots, and waiting for the knock on my door in the morning to tell me that school was cancelled because of snow - this meant I got a full day to spend sledding with my brother.

It is full of opportunity and really interesting and influential people, and has so much to offer. However, everyone grew up together; no one moves away from this city. Even the parents lived and went to school in Birmingham when they were kids. The community is so incredibly tight-knit, and everyone enjoys each other's company. However, as the new kid, I was not accepted by this community. I got exiled, and only had one or two good friends for a few years. Even some of the friends I thought I had would exclude me from certain things just because I hadn't started doing that activity when they started doing it - things like fake battles with toy guns in the back yard, things that shouldn't matter whether I did it with them the first time or not. Being young, I had no idea what to do besides keep trying, and perhaps that is the best thing to do. Not to keep trying to change the people who won't accept you for who you are or where you came from, but to keep trying to connect with different people. I eventually found that two things were true. One of them was that over time, people forget that you were the new kid, and the other is that even at the beginning, there are always people who will accept you for who you are, you just have to be willing to step outside of your comfort zone to find them. That is the mindset I would have today if and when I'm put in the situation of being a new kid again - it is impossible to change people who do not want to be changed, but if you simply have kindness and keep seeking out people to be around, you can always find someone who will accept you where you are, even if you are the "new