I by the tree-covered, broken-up streets, getting shelter from the downpour over to other friends’ houses. Some had backyards connecting to Volunteer Park where we would play, or they would come over to jump on our trampoline and play with the go-karts in the basement. Sometimes my dog would escape and we would have to run after her. Knowing most people in my neighborhood made me feel safer and made me feel like I was part of a big family.

Through the years, friends would move away and new friends would move in. Always having friends made it easier to make new ones when they arrived. After 12 years there, I started wondering when we were going to move. This thought scared me, so I tried not to think about it.

The next year of school we drove for 11 hours to Sun Valley. My parents were always looking at houses there, so I didn’t think anything of the visit, and it really shocked me when my parents planned another trip where we would be looking at schools. I knew then that we were going to move. When I toured the school, it was scary and I felt anxious because I don’t like talking and asking questions to new people. The new school was much tinier than my old one, so there were less people to become friends with. I felt they would all be so close and I could never make friends. I didn’t want to leave because I knew everybody on Aloha Street and in my school.

At the beginning of last year the new kid was walking home from school in the same direction I was going, so I asked him if I could walk with him and he said, “yes”. This is not something I would usually do. We started talking about our lives and he told me how he used to live in Seattle then moved to an island in the Puget Sound. He had also told me how he had moved schools multiple times and had to make many new friends. It felt really weird hearing all these stories because I hadn’t heard anything like that before. I hadn’t met enough people to hear all the stories people had from moving.

I realized that my life has not had enough moving, and my life story felt boring, so I then liked the idea of moving. I still felt sad leaving all my friends behind, butI knew there would be people I could hear stories from. I just needed to talk to them. If I had not reached out to that new kid, I would never have learned that moving makes it possible to hear other people’s stories.

From this moment, I realized that you need to reach out to new people even if you feel uncomfortable or scared because they are probably not who you think they are. I used these skills when I moved to Sun Valley. This was my first time moving since I was one, so I just tried to talk to as many people as possible. I had never tried to make new friends when I had no friends already there. I knew what people liked where I lived, but I didn’t know what people liked here at first. I had to ask myself if they would like sports or even eat the same foods I do. Living in the city, then moving to a small town in the mountains means big changes, from access to the ski mountain to lack of an ocean to way more hunting. reaching out to people here has led me to do things I would never have done in Seattle. I didn’t realize how important my friend’s lesson would be until I had to use it here.

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