The Dark and the Light

My Life

I've never really had a plan. I've always had an idea of where I was heading but I've never really sat down and written out what I was going to do. I have written goals and different ideas of things I could do but those were always guides. They've never been my set in stone life plan.

When I was in elementary school about to head to middle school, I had to make the biggest decision (at the time) of my life. I could go to Lewis and Clark with most my friends, Beveridge Magnet with a few of my friends, or I could go to Bryan where I knew absolutely no one and had to start fresh. I didn't want to have to rely on my elementary school friends to be there for me and help me adjust so I decided to dive straight into the unknown at Bryan middle school. That was the best decision of my life.

My elementary school was a typical Dundee elementary school. There were poor kids, rich kids, kids with bad home lives, and kids from wonderful loving homes. I always made friends with the outcasts. My main friend group throughout elementary school included a girl from Nepal, a girl from China, a girl with hearing issues, a girl who's mom had a new boyfriend staying at the house every few weeks, and a boy who was about 5'10'' in 5th grade. Although I was well liked by the kids in my elementary school, these people were the ones I was able to interact with easily since I knew they were going to be there for me no matter what. At the beginning of 6th grade though, my best friend and I had a falling out and my friend group completely divided and school wasn't pleasant from then on. I needed to go somewhere different and new so Bryan was perfect.

The first day of middle school I met my new best friend and started a new way of life. I joined volleyball, swimming, track, band, Book Blasters, African American History Challenge, and several other activities. I was super busy but extremely happy. In each of these activities I had a different set of friends and racially I was the minority. This was definitely not the case with my elementary school but I loved it. Instead of naturally connecting with the kids around me because of the color of my skin, I had to find common personality traits and shared activities. Anywhere else, these kids would probably have struggled to fit in but at Bryan they were able to be around people with similar backgrounds and this helped me learn a lot about their lives and the types of life obstacles they had to overcome that I probably will never have to worry about.

After spending two wonderful years in this mini paradise, I had to choose a high school. Since the first day of Kindergarten, I was told that Central high school was the best high school in all of Omaha so I decided that was where I wanted to go. Central was literally a melting pot. There was so much diversity there and everyone was different from one another. It was a beautiful community and almost everyone was able to appreciate how there was something for everyone but during my sophomore year I started missing Bryan. I really just wanted to go back, but I knew that Bryan high school wouldn't be the same so I started looking for a different school. I honestly have no idea how Millard South came up but on freshman day during my Junior year I transfered and have absolutely no regrets. I didn't know anyone and again, had to start completely new. I'm not super involved like I was in middle school but I've definitely made friends that will last into adulthood. Once graduation arrives this springI'll have to figure out what I want to do with my life and it'll probably involve me going off to start new somewhere else but I always do really well without a pre-set plan.