When I was a kid, well, a younger kid, my immediate family and I moved around a lot. Looking back now, all the different locations blur together a bit, but I still remember exactly how it felt. When my parent's would tell us we were moving then my class would always throw a going away party and I would say goodbye to my friends.
It was easier when I was little, yes it was still sad to leave my old friends behind, but as a kid I didn't get too attached and I was always excited to see where we were going next. Surprisingly, despite the constant moving, all the places we went to were somewhat similar. We lived in the suburbs every time and went to predominantly white schools and I enjoyed it. As a kid moving all the time was an adventure. I didn't mind that I was one out of maybe five African Americans in my whole school, it was just something I saw as normal.
I remember once when I was in maybe the 5th grade and we were learning about slavery in social studies, one of the students looked at me and said she felt bad for "my people." I didn't really know how to respond to that. I never felt like I was any different from the rest of them, like I was from a set of people who were different from them. As I got older, being different became more difficult to deal with. Most of my friends were Caucasian and were naturally skinny with long glossy hair and as a young girl going through all those changes, I automatically started comparing myself to them. It did some serious damage to my self esteem as I tried my best to fit in.
The last time I moved was at the end of 7th grade, we decided to move closer to family because of some personal things going on, and so we moved to North Carolina. Long story short, it was a massive culture shock when I suddenly was enrolled into a predominantly African American school. Ironically I felt as if I stood out there more than in my previous schools. I became withdrawn, never talking in any of my classes and my only enjoyment was video games for a while.
After going to high school I slowly began to find myself again. I joined the marching band after being somewhat pressured into it and I started to have a life again. By the time I got to my junior year I finally had some confidence in myself again and I'd like to think that I'm in the best place emotionally and mentally than I've ever been. I have some awesome friends (that can really annoy me sometimes :p), an amazing boyfriend and way more confidence than I've ever had before.
I'm still socially awkward and weird and I don't really fit in anywhere but I've learned that that's okay. It's important to be able to accept yourself as you are, and that was my journey on how I ended up doing that. But I'm only 17, what do I know I've barely even experienced life yet, this is just a summary of what's happened so far. I just thought it would be fitting to reflect a little before this new year begins. Happy New Year everyone, may 2017 be much better than 2016 was.
