In middle school, I was in a friend group with all girls and sometimes I think that was the happiest I’ve ever felt and sometimes I think those were the best friends I’ve ever had.
We did everything together: went to Palm Springs, got ready for stupid dances, cried together, more often laughed together, and sang together.
Everything we could do together, we did.
I remember being so sad when they graduated and went off to high school because I was left behind without the people I have grown so close to. I was also sad because I knew that we would never be as close as we used to be. I was right.
After middle school, some of us went to public school, some of us went to the expected high school, some of us started at the expected high school and switched, and one of us didn’t even go to high school in the same town.
Fast forward three years, I am a sophomore and they are juniors. I knew we would be different, but not this different.
Don’t get me wrong, change isn’t always a bad thing. It’s just different, and, more than usual lately, it’s been scaring me.
I don’t want to lose my people, but sometimes i’m afraid I’ve already lost them .
Sometimes I worry about them a lot and sometimes a little less.
Sometimes I get sad when I hear one of them did something big I had no idea about.
Sometimes I make myself so nervous I start shaking.
Sometimes I realize how selfish I am, but, sometimes, most of the time, it all comes down to: I wish that in a room full of people, we would still go to each other first.
When I stepped into my first class at the beginning of freshman year, senior year seemed so far away.
Now, I just survived my first week of being a senior and too many realizations hit me at once.
That, at the end of the year, I won’t be sitting on the bleachers watching my friends from higher grades graduate. This time, I’ll be the one walking on the stage to receive my diploma that I worked so hard to get over my high school years.
But, it’s only the beginning of the year. There’s still so much to anticipate. So much to go through.
The countless college applications and dreadful Saturday mornings I’ll spend doing the SAT until I get the perfect score so I can get into the perfect college. The ideas for my senior project that I still can’t choose, because I don’t even have one in mind. What my prom dress will look like, or even my graduation dress.
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It’s only the beginning of my final year at OVS. It’s the beginning of the end of my high school experience.
It hurts knowing at the end of the year I’ll have to say goodbye to everything I’ve known. To my friends and teachers, to my horse, and to the small town and smaller school that has been my second home.
But, I’m still hopeful that this will be an amazing year, and maybe my days at OVS will only be in my memories and I’ll be living a completely different life, but I’ll still remember them as the most important times in my life.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into; I was in a place I’ve never been, with people I’ve never met, learning things I’ve never learned about.
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I was forced against my will. “You’re going to leadership camp.” My mom said. God, i hated the sound of that . I ignored that I had to go for weeks on end, until the day came.
There were 28 of us. Girls and boys all fit into one dorm —girls on one side, boys on the other. The leader of the program, Cornelia, told us that we would make bonds so close that we might end up thinking we love people here and that we might end up actually doing so. I called B.S.
I was wrong. We continued the program, which begun at 8AM everyday with breakfast and the majority of the days ended at 9PM with not a lot of free time in between. Everyday, I was more exhausted than the day before, most of the time, it was emotionally, but sometimes physically too.
Each day consisted of sitting and standing in circles, learning about concepts like “seeking true north,” “finding your true authentic self,” and “identity.” We would sit in circles with people we didn’t know and answer prompts like “When is a time you did or did not feel trust?” That was called “council” and it was terrifying, I can barely open up with my closest friends, let alone people I had just meet. I was wrong again. I found myself sharing things I had never said out loud in that foreign place with those same foreign people.
I bonded with people in ways that I never knew was even possible and experienced what it was like to be loved and supported in every way, shape, and form. Yes, I have friends at home, sure. But, I had never felt friendship in the way I felt it here. One of the most important things I learned: not all of your friends are meant to be the deep, emotional friends. You can and will have the friends you just have fun with and will never a day in your life get deep with and that’s ok too. But, for once, I thought it was nice to have both.
One of the scariest things for me has always been letting people in. I tend to guard myself. My logic used to be, “If I never let anyone get too close to me no one can ever hurt me.” It makes sense, yes. It’s also true. But, it’s lonely. I never knew just how lonely it was, until I felt the alternative.
While I was at Core Leadership California, I met a girl named Sedona. She is eighteen and lives about six hours away and is going to into her freshman year in college at a place which happens to be really close to where I live. It was the last day: everyone was listening to a classroom lesson, which pretty much means we are all sitting in a circle on the ground and the leader of the program talks to us about things she thinks we would grow from. The leader told us to write down someone in our book that we feel like we can talk to about deep things when we go back home and for them to be “our person.” I, being the awkward person I am didn’t write anyone down, not because I don’t have friends who would support me, but because I never did, or could, open up to my friends in that way. I think Sedona saw that I wrote no one down, or maybe she didn’t, but she was sitting right next to me, anyways.
Fast forward an hour or two and everyone was saying goodbye to each other. I think every single person out of the 28 of us cried. Most of us had cried before though, either in council or just along the trip, because it was such an open environment we felt we could do so and not have to hide it. Although, I was one of the few people who hadn’t. In the moment near the end, I cried way harder than I had in a long while, but I finally felt like I made the friends i had always wanted and it was so hard for me. I didn’t know when I was going to see them again.
The closest person to me lived 7 hours away.
It came my turn to say goodbye to Sedona. I was crying pretty hard, so we just hugged, maybe for thirty seconds… more or less. Which, is a pretty long time for a hug, if you think about it.
Thirty seconds just holding someone… it’s a while, but not when you’re both crying. I was never a big hugger until recently. Hugs feel like all the things you can never say.
We were hugging and she let go and just looked at me in the eye and I didn’t know what to do. So, I probably just looked at the ground and then she said, “Kiana, I’ll be your person if you let me.”
That meant everything in the world to me. Maybe it’s because no one had ever said anything like that before, maybe it’s something else.
I can’t put how a thing like that into words. Maybe it’s better unsaid, maybe i’m ruining it by writing about it, but,
in that moment, I realized that maybe, just maybe, platonic love could carry a person.
To say the least, I am eternally grateful for my mom for making me go against my will to the leadership program at a place I’ve never been, with people I’ve never met, learning things I’ve never learned about.
Looking back, I think I could have fallen in love with you.
And I think that if I let myself I probably still would.
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But now things are different and you’ve met someone who you seem to love even though you don’t talk about her much.
I wonder if you ever think of me that way anymore. I know you used to.
For a while I thought every word that came out of your mouth was arrogant. The few words we exchanged in passing made me sad, and I wondered why you were so polite to everyone but me. I thought that I would never know you the way I used to and I missed that. But now I realize you probably just said those things because you missed me too.
I forgot about how effortlessly eloquent you are. I forgot how good you are at communicating and how incredibly intelligent you are. I could listen to you for hours and never be bored.
I forgot how curly your hair gets when you let it grow longer and about the way you gesture with your hands when you get excited.
You reminded me that I don’t care when you laugh at me because I’m just glad that I get to hear your laugh again. You reminded me about how you actually listen to what I have to say, and you actually care.
You told me you wanted to hear me sing again. You said you’re learning guitar now and talked about how we used to play music together. I never told you badly I miss that.
I could see myself loving you someday. I could see myself loving you for a long time.
I’m sorry for the things I said about you. I think it was because I was sad that so much had changed so fast and that inevitably you had changed too. But when it’s just us and when you don’t have to worry if anyone is listening you somehow convince me that you haven’t changed much after all.
I sometimes try to imagine what it might be like now if you never left, but it’s probably better this way.
Maybe we were always meant to love each other but we just missed our opportunity. Maybe someday we’ll still be able to, if we’re lucky.
Like so many students at this school, I don’t live at home. I don’t even live in my home country, not even on the same continent. So many people at this school took the risk of moving across the globe, to learn english and live a life on this beautiful hill with rosy sunsets and a breathtaking night sky. And I wouldn’t want it any other way.
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When I first came here I was 13, and to be honest, my English was pretty miserable. I still recall the moment I got on the plane to LAX, and a flight attendant tried talking to me in English. I remember how I barely understood her and froze, and thought to myself, “Holy hell, I can’t do this!”.
As the days passed, I became more and more anxious about going to school where everything is in a language I hardly know. But the second the first OVS student talked to me, it was all gone. Well, most of it. I realized that I, by far, was not the only international student, and that everyone here was willing to help me feel as much at home as possible.
I remember always looking over to my brother, seeing him talk to other students already. And then there was me, sitting in the corner with my beloved social anxiety. I imagined the next year to be like one of these movies, where the awkward new kid doesn’t find any friends. Oh, how wrong I was!
I can’t express how thankful I am for everyone here. For my roommate, who helped me with literally anything, no matter if it was about a word I didn’t understand, or where to find my classrooms, and who supplied me with snacks and BuzzFeed quizzes and “Mean Girls.” For all my friends and classmates who would never let me feel left out. And for all the teachers and faculty who do their best every single day to make this community work.
OVS, as cliché as this might sound, has helped me grow so much over the past years. I learned that change can be good, I learned how to socialize in an environment where I barely know anyone, I learned how to express myself without feeling judged by every human being around me. One of the things I learned, however, that I consider one of the most important ones, is that I learned how to write. I’m not a very good writer, don’t get me wrong. But before I came here the thought of me writing in a somewhat nice manner has never even occurred to me, let alone in a different language.
OVS has taught me so much. I know it is just a school, and it surely isn’t perfect. But it was this intimidating change that was needed for me, and so many other people here, to make high school a better memory than what it would have been without this place.
Sometimes I contemplate whether or not after high school I should take a gap year. There’s so many things to learn by simply traveling and exploring, and I wonder if there’s too many possible adventures to simply get done in a life time. I can’t imagine them all as I’m stuck in school doing essays, endless math problems, and projects, but I hope.
As much as I picture myself being an ambitious law student in the heart of New York City, I begin to stalk the traveler pages of Instagram who share their passions to the world, and wonder how life like that would be. To take life one step at a time without a care in the world about the future. To travel freely, explore different cultures, or learn for mere enjoyment rather than cramming in information for a final exam.
I’ve had the privilege to travel before. From galloping horses through Ireland’s terrain to swimming with stingrays in the Cayman Islands, highlights of my life have always included traveling. But if I’m honest with myself, I probably won’t become one of those people who are in a new country every week, and that’s okay, but there are two things I know I want to do before I die.
Backpacking through Europe. This has always been on the top of my bucket list. I just want to go with a group of friends traveling city to city via train, bike ride through Amsterdam, go to the art museums in France, or swim in the oceans of Greece. There’s so many opportunities in Europe that there wouldn’t need to be a full agenda to make the trip enjoyable.
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2. A horseback riding safari through Africa. I didn’t even know this was a thing until a couple months ago, but it’s been on my mind ever since. I’ve always wanted to go on an African safari, but being able to do it on horseback would make it ten times better. Just picturing galloping through the Savannas near the zebras and the antelope under the bright sun, it seems to surreal to be true, but it is.
These are just two things out of a dozen. The world is so big that exploring every inch of it in such a short time seems impossible. But I want to make sure that I discover as much of it as I can.
Your future is like the tedious clicking of your cart on the incline. Each time you move a little forward, the safety kicks in to make sure you don’t fly back. Those have been put there so you can only move forward. Time is what moves you along, what makes you get on with your life.
Once you reach the top, another goal is met. You are on the brink of a new adventure, a new path in life. You are relieved you made it, but are anticipating something new; whether it be a drop, jolt, or loop. Anxiety fills you as you are thrown into the unexpected.
Well, it turns out it was a drop. Not just any drop, either. Full 80 degree, head-first sensation that is heading straight for the ground. Hardships don’t slowly make their way into your life. They burst in and blind you. They take you by surprise and totally change your perspective.
Your cart continues the course of the ride and then it’s over. You can get off the ride and move on to the next thing. Some people say rollercoasters are just one thing, so they only stimulate one thing, one life. However, rollercoasters are almost the opposite. They’re one moment. When you go to a theme park, you don’t just go on one ride. You wait in line after line, just waiting for something new.
The one thing all the quotes relating life to rollercoasters forget to mention is others. You aren’t in that cart alone. You are sitting next to your best friend, your sibling, or a stranger, but you are never completely alone. These people are experiencing the same moment; they drop when you do and they soar just the same.
Life is a series of moments, a series of rides. Life isn’t just one big moment, but a mixture of many. However, the people around you and the way you deal with the big drops and loops can surely affect your ride.
What happens when the things around you seem to become dark and grey?
What about when your life gets flipped upside down and all of a sudden the things that used to make you happy remind you of everything you have lost.
You look around and suddenly the people who used to be there for you everyday, the ones you couldn’t go a day without talking to, disappear without a trace.
Everything that made you, you is gone in a flash
The hikes that used to love to take now feel like every breath is a burden
The bike with a wicker basket that you used to ride around your block, which was once filled with amazing memories, sits in the back of your garage rusting away.
When everything that made you happy now makes you feel dejected and hurt
What I fail to do in my day-to-day life is take things less seriously.
I always think about the future and whether the guy I have a crush on will ever reciprocate my feelings or whether I’ll ever amount to anything.
These things—these vague dreams and thoughts of mine cause my stomach to churn and my eyes to fill with tears.
I want to live life for now, not waste my thoughts on the future. For who knows whether I’ll even be alive for the moments I dream about.
When I was younger I would see people in commercials, with their perfect BMI and perfectly white teeth, andI couldn’t help but think, why not me?
Why am I not happy or perfect everyday of the year? Why am I not constantly dressed in designer knock offs from Macy’s?
The truth is, these people are just actors who are paid to be happy, and they’re probably not paid too much either. I mean it’s a JC Penney commercial.
If you were happy everyday of your life you wouldn’t be a person, you’d be a game show host.
I try to live my life with as much hope as possible.
While on the outside I seem like this moody teenager who thrives off sarcasm and the misfortune of others, I really do care.
I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh.I love sunshine and 80’s power ballads. I love animals and strong coffee. I love my family and friends.
I want to live my life happy. I don’t care if I’m never rich or famous or the star of a TJ Maxx commercial, I just want to be the happiest person I can be.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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