Texas vs. Nebraska
We pulled into the beautiful circle drive of a two-story, white house with green awnings. I had never been more scared in my entire life. It was time to start over; new school, new friends, new life.
My dad accepted a job in Greenville, Texas. A town where the crickets would cover the streets like gravel at night, and the sound driving over them was like the Fourth of July. Everyone talked differently; although, I would later find out that I was the one with the funny accent. I was going to be part of a community where high school football was a religion. Where the only high school in town had block scheduling, a closed campus for lunch, a strict dress code, and any sport that you played was considered a class. It was my sophomore year in high school, and transferring from a Nebraska school to a Texas school seemed as though I was on a different planet.
It was a typical Texas day, eighty degrees at 7:00 in the morning. There I was, dressed in a blue and white short-sleeved shirt, jean shorts no shorter than the top of my knees, and closed-toed shoes. Entering the parking lot of the school, my dad dropped me off. Looking up at the enormous brick building with butterflies in my stomach, I was going to begin my first day of school. The smell of the air was dense and suffocating; I felt nauseous.
Once inside and settled, the classes flew by; however, I could not shrug my feeling of misplacement. It was now lunch time. I slowly walked down to the cafeteria pondering what I could possibly do during lunch on a closed campus. I walked into the lunch room where there sat 1,000 students. Not knowing anyone and feeling completely lost, I scanned the room for a friendly face. I saw a couple of girls from my previous class and decided to join them. I felt relieved until shortly after, they were finished and left. There I was, alone at the lunch table surrounded by a thousand unfamiliar faces, and I was the only person sitting by herself. I felt the blood rushing to my head and the tears escalating in my eyes. I threw away my lunch and wandered the halls trying to fight back my tears. Why me? Why now? I made myself emotionless throughout the rest of the day to prevent the barrier of tears from exploding through. I couldn't help but stare at the clock and count down the minutes until my dad would be out front to pick me up. I needed to release my anger and all of the emotion that I had been holding in. Finally when the school day came to an end, I was devastated, uncontrollable crying, and never wanting to return to this horrible place where I felt so different.
The days got easier as they went on. After a long period of adjustment, I came to like Greenville, and then I loved it. A year and a half went by when my dad approached me with yet another challenge: we were moving back to Lincoln. The life that I had established and the friends that I had made were gone again. We pulled out of the beautiful circle drive of a two-story, white house with green awnings and headed for Lincoln, Nebraska.
This was the most challenging time in my life and the most rewarding. Two periods of adjustment during high school was hard for me, yet bittersweet. I learned a lot about me and about the way people treat each other. Why are people so unaccepting of others? The biggest lesson that I learned from this experience is that you can only control your own behavior and no one else's. Treat others the way you would like to be treated because it only takes one time for something little to break someone's spirit.
Everyone possesses different qualities that make them individuals, and everyone has something to offer. People's lives can be affected by the littlest things: a smile, a hello, a simple conversation, or even a compliment. The little things that we do in life are the most important. After my first day at a new school in Greenville, it changed the way I treat people to this day, and for that, I have my parents to thank.
