Big Cities, Small Schools.

When thinking of everything that makes me who I am today, relationships with the people I'm surrounded by have been less important (in my personal case) than the actual events of my life. I consider myself to be a very independent person, and I think my circumstances while going through school has shaped that. I lived in the middle of a city, surrounded by four schools with 700 or more people in each class, and I chose to go to school half an hour away, with my class being about 1/6 the size of that. I remember being in middle school, declaring to my mother- very dramatically, of course- that going to school with kids who thought hearing police sirens signified the end to the world was absurd and unnecessary. She, of course, thought otherwise. I was definitely blessed with the parent who liked having her children develop life changing understandings through culturally diverse and thriving situations, so my brother and I did the only thing we could. He drove us to school in the morning, and I became friends with the only normal girl I could find- the one wearing a tutu, who wrote 'I Love Slater' over everything.

It wasn't until I got older that I realized, and came to appreciate, the details of my childhood. I grew up having a first hand seat to my classmates' grand narratives. They were planning on following in their parents footsteps, finding their high-school sweethearts and settling down in the dear town they were residing in. Not all of them, but I found a majority of them to have a huge dependence on that place, and found comfort in the 'known'. I gave them props for having that much trust in something, knowing that that's where they needed to be, but I instantly realized that wasn't at all what I wanted. I didn't want just what I knew, but I had a terrible urge to explore everything I didn't know. The situation could have played out in a various amount of ways, depending on the person I was then, and how I took everything in. I'd like to think that I always knew my home was comforting, and a place that would never be unavailable. But I think going to school in a different environment than what I grew up in allowed me to realize and actually come to terms with it- that my home was exactly that. A place that will always be there, so what's the point in having that be my one and only option?

It's interesting looking at how the same experience can shape each individual differently, and how a person embraces an experience ultimately defines who they are. Seeing, living, and being a part of completely different environments led me to be the independent person I am, and if my circumstance was different, I would inevitably be different as well.