College Admissions Essay: Remember I Say, Smile Today

When I was only four years old, my life changed forever. It was the year I moved to North Carolina. My dad’s friend got him a job opportunity that he simply couldn’t give up. So, he quit his job and found a nice rental house to live in. I had moved before but I don’t remember. I moved from Indiana to North Carolina with my brother my cat and my parents. When I moved to North Carolina, I was aware of what was happening, but I never realized how different everything would be. The house we moved into we only lived in for a year, but it was a pretty hectic year.

“Woah! Why are you wearing makeup? Do you not think you’re pretty?” My cheeks flushed. I hadn’t been expecting any comments, or for anyone to notice at all, but suddenly the mascara coating my eyes and the pink lipgloss I was wearing felt like a big neon sign saying “look at me.”

Becoming of older age, I began to understand that it’s perfectly fine to be imperfect. The extraordinary person I believed I would never become started off by committing faults and mistakes. Despite the fact that I was treated differently it pushed me toward understanding that I am enough. No matter what obstacles or battles I come across I’ve convinced myself to ignore the negativity surrounding me and converting it to positivity.

Like many people I went through high school with the same group of friends from middle school. We were all extremely close and acted like family. Upon graduating, we all realized that we wouldn’t see each other as much, especially the people that went to LSU, ULL and Emory and even LA Tech. We had lost those close-knits relationships we formed for over 7 years. Many people would be upset over this but it showed me who my real friends were and they are my new-found sisters in the sorority I joined and my best friend from sixth grade.

After fifteen hours I was ready to get out of the car. I knew we had to be close; I could see the tall beautiful church. That seemed to be one of the only distinct memories I had of this place. My family had been moving around Florida for the past three years of my life. Three years, three cities, and four different schools. This time we were moving to Ohio; my family was very excited about the move they said they were so happy to finally be home, but I had little to no memory of this place being my home.

After a long ride, we saw our new home for the first time. It wasn’t luxurious, but to a couple of young children like us it was cool to live on the beach. The changes that lied ahead of us were great. There are many ways in which this new start changed my life. First, no longer did we live in fear. This enabled me to move on. I enrolled in eight grade that year. I felt like had a fresh start. No one knew my business. I could make myself whatever I wanted. My whole personality changed. That year I started at quarterback for junior high and from there everything started to look up. If I was to go into details of all the success I had it would be bragging, so I am just going to say I went from a casualty of a broken home to a respected and important part of High Island High School. In the five years I was there, I had more fun and a more productive life than all the other years put together.

When I was six years old I moved from Colorado to New Mexico. At the end of my junior year of high school I found out that I was moving back to Colorado. I was full of emotions that made me hate the world. I had thought of every possibility on how to stay in nm and finish high school. At the time I was talking to a girl that I really liked and had a lot of very close friends. I wasn’t the kind of kid to go out and do things with people but during the second half of my junior year I made some friends that I started to do things with. It was as if I had finally made all my friends and found people who I wanted to be around but it was all being taken away from me. One of my brothers still lived in nm and my plan was to stay in nm with him and

Moving from the car to the door, I sheathed the key into the lock and turned the doorknob quickly trying to escape the summer heat. Sounds of what was supposed to be the house alarm acknowledging my existence were muted over by whirling hot air, sizzling oil, chopping, and grating

Up to that point, Todd had been working, so it had been Alyssa, our mom, and me. When Todd had finally gotten off from work, we decided to drive to one of the beaches to see the sunset. It took three hours to drive from our Bakersfield hotel to Morro Bay. What I saw there was breathtaking. The beach was a mixture of sand, pebbles, and giant boulders. You could see rocky islands protruding from the ocean and towering mountains at your back. To someone whose entire life was spent in a state where there was a clear division between mountains, the piedmont, and beaches, it was surreal. That was the point of no return for me. When I realized how boring my life had become, and how badly I was going to hate going

I stared at the sky wondering where time has gone. While my best friend Tiara, her boyfriend Akoni, her cousin Kamakana, and I sit on the side of the road outside of my house I flashback to my childhood. My best friend Tiara Conn has lived across the road from me all of my life. I used to be able to run to her house and ask if she wanted to play and she would do the same. We were so much alike that our houses resembled our tight friendship. Our houses were the same layout and our bedrooms both were both the closest to the master bedroom. Not to mention we both have siblings exactly 2 years younger.

The house that built me Never in a million years did I think that I would be moving out of my house in Iowa Falls. Growing up my dream had always been to someday move back to Iowa Falls, and live in that house. That was until my mom and dad sat me down on the porch after one of my baseball games and broke the news that we’d be moving to Clear Lake after baseball season. I had had known for a couple months that there was a good chance that we were going to be moving. I sat there on the enclosed front porch looking out around the neighborhood thinking about all the great times that I’d had at that house.

At the end of my junior year my best friend,Asher, graduated high school. I honestly had know idea how I was going to survive high school the following year without him. We took as many electives together as we could we always walked to class together and sat by each other at every assembly. We were basically inseparable so, of course, I was quite upset to see him leave high school while I still had another year to suffer through before I would be out. The last three weeks the rest of us had of school since the seniors got out early were more dull and boring than usual without Asher there.

Growing up I had a lot of friends through school. We had our own group of about 4-5 people. We hung out every chance we got and back then were really close. Like most childhood friendships we grew apart. I’ve had good friends from my childhood, but not a best friend. It wasn’t until the end of my deployment in Afghanistan that I met a guy who was soon to be my closest best friend. We started talking and realized we had a lot in common. Even when we were 1000 miles away from home, we had a lot of mutual friends and grew up really close to each other. We grew and bonded as close friends with many positive similarities from the relationship rules theory. To be more precise the friendship rule. I’m going to use the friendship rule and

Clara, my Dad, and I are the last ones to arrive because our flight from Chicago was overlaid two hours. I missed Chicago already, the constant buzz of people and the bright lights. Walking up to the house, everything felt the same as it always did. The humidity is choking, making it hard to breathe. The sun is blinding and the temperature is somewhere in the 90’s, as to be expected late July in South Carolina. The lake smells like dead fish. Always, no matter what. We walked up the old, wooden stairs. The light blue paint was chipping off the door, and the door itself looked like it was about to fall of the hinges. Clara let herself in, pulling her lime suitcase behind her. My two little cousins, Reagan and Matthew, immediately saw her and squealed with joy. Everyone loved Clara, her bubbly personality easy to get along with. No one, on the other hand, was ever excited to see me. I was the quiet one, overlooked by

I was seven years old when I moved into a new neighborhood. It was called “The Glen”. This was not an ordinary neighborhood though. As my parents and I pulled into the driveway, along with the moving truck, I could see multiple kids running all around in the street and grass. I had known a kid from school named Scott who was one of the ones playing out there. As soon as we parked, I hopped out of the car with my brother, Connor, and ran straight over to play. Some of the kids were my age, others older in high school, but none younger. I was introduced to them. Massey, Tal, Trevor, Rotem, Matt, Jordan, Brandon, and Justin. These kids I would never forget. Over time, many of these kids moved on either to new houses, colleges, or states, but the things we did we would remember forever.