Being shy isn't really an accurate term that people would use to describe me. Well, that is for the people who knew me after I moved. Flashback to when I was 8. At this point in time, I really only had one friend. With my grade only having 27 kids for the whole class, there weren't many choices. My dad worked about an hour and forty-five minutes away from our house. It was getting hard for him to have to drive that far everyday especially coming off a night shift. My parents talked for a few months and decided to put our house on the market. After about eight or nine months, it sold. It was very difficult to leave the house that I grew up in and the house that my mom grew up in before me. We got the house when my mom's parents, my grandparents, lost their lives due to a motorcycle accident. For our family, there were so many memories built into this house. As the months went by,  boxes slowly started to pile up all around the house. My only friend was very disappointed that I was leaving and to be honest, I was disappointed too. I was worried that I would not be able to make any friends. We moved on June 8, 2011. Moving day arrived quicker than I could have ever had expected. We hired a company to help us move all of our things to our new house. This new house was an hour and a half away from my old one. I remember driving to the new one and counting the minutes to see how long it would take to get back to the old one.

Arriving at the new house I noticed that the people that had lived there before were still not completely packed. My parents seemed really angry so I just stayed away from all of the chaos. The new house had a river in the back with a bridge that crossed over to the other side which was just a wooded area. I went for a walk over the bridge and wondered how being in a different place would affect me. I was determined to make more than just one friend but was really nervous about what others would think of me. I didn't want to be the shy girl anymore.
When I went back to the house I realized that the other family had left and it was just us and the people helping.

I helped unpack for a few hours and my mom told me to go outside and relax for a bit. I was on the front porch when I noticed some kids around my age playing outside. I had never had neighbors this close before since the old place was in the middle of the country. My mom then suggested that I go introduce myself. I wasn't quite sure if I was comfortable introducing myself to people I had never met. Then I quickly realized that this was going to be the new normal for a while. I went over and introduced myself and noticed very quickly that I had just met my first new friends. Their names were Pearl and Abraham. When summer was coming to an end I started to think about school and remembered how Pearl had said that they were home schooled and would not be attending the public school.Though I was only a nine year old going into the fourth grade I was still really nervous that I had to make new friends all over again.

My first day of fourth grade was in my eyes “terrifying”.  I watched as all the people around me laughed with others next to them. When I got to my class my teacher was standing outside of her door greeting people as they came in. We had already met at the open house and she knew that I was anxious to make friends. When everyone was in the classroom she gave us our seating arrangement. I sat next to two other girls Hailey and Hannah. My teacher said that she thought Hannah and I could become really good friends and she was right. Hannah and I became close very quick. She introduced me to some of her friends and before I knew it I had a group of friends. The shy part of me had almost faded away that is until Hannah told me that she was going to be moving to another town. Even though I knew her friends, I just didn't feel comfortable with them unless Hannah was around. I went home that day and told my parents about Hannah moving and then they told me that they just heard the news that my friend Pearl was also moving away. With the only two friends I had moving away, it felt like I was starting right back at where I started. That's when my mom thought it would be a good idea for me to join volleyball. She figured it would be a good way to meet some friends. I had never played volleyball before so I denied the idea for a while until I realized that when Hannah and Pearl actually moved away I wouldn’t really have any other friends. So I decided to join and just see what would happen. For the first few days of practice, I was really shy and didn't really talk to anybody. My coaches noticed that I wasn't talking as much as the others and paired me up with someone. By the coaches doing this they helped me meet a new friend. Her name was Sara. She was really into volleyball and helped me with some basic things that I did not understand. By the end of 4th grade, Hannah and Pearl had already left. The person I really considered a friend was Sara.

5th grade wasn't as bad as 4th grade. Sara had introduced me to all of her friends. I was starting to feel like I really fit in with the crowd. I felt like I was becoming myself. Skip to middle school and you might finally consider me an outgoing person. If you were to just meet me would have never thought I was shy. After middle school was the high school where I learned that I don't have to pretend to be someone I'm not. I can be the most outgoing person if I want to be. By meeting new friends and learning to be myself I was able to get rid of the shy person I used to be.