Picture this, it is January 2023 you are a 10th grade high school student way up in Toronto, Canada, one morning, your parents tell you that you will be moving to this place called Fontana in California because they found better jobs there. You were given five months' notice, your passport on the table, a suitcase containing your life, and a one-way plane ticket to uncertainty. Imagine all the thoughts racing through your head when that news was broken to you: “Are they joking? What will happen to my friends? What will happen to my grades? Will I be shunned for being different?”. These thoughts and questions swirl around your mind like a hurricane entering your brain, eventually leading you down a slippery slope of anxiety. However, deep down inside you shines a glimmer of hope in the darkness, dim but present.
I sometimes stop and reflect on just how much my life has changed in these past two short years. Two years ago, I was a happy student attending a Catholic High School in the suburbs of Toronto, Canada. My life consisted of the same group of friends, the same house I grew up in, the same community I called my own, and most importantly: the same sense of security that I’ve always felt from the moment I was conscious. Achieving high grades, being the number one student in my class, a student athlete, student council freshman vice president, what more could a high school boy ask for? All these achievements gave me confidence to be who I am and express myself the way I wanted to, I felt unstoppable which helped me carve a precise plan for the future. At the time, I was set on going to the University of Toronto as a Biology major and pursue a career in medicine. For a while, this felt like all there was to life, I would never leave my city and I will pursue success in the place I have always known, who wouldn't have thought that.
But, like a cinematic cliche, life had a different plan for me just at the peak of my life at that point. I remember the day vividly, the opening game of the sophomore soccer season and my first game back after suffering a severe injury freshman year. I was nervous but ready. That morning I woke up just a little earlier, I got ready just a little bit faster, and I was ready to walk to school just a bit earlier to get to morning practice. I just came down the stairs, a cold Canadian winter morning at 6 am, the Sun had not even risen yet and I saw my parents sitting down organizing many papers. I thought it must be taxes or bills, that boring adult stuff I thought. Little did I know about the news that would shatter my secure life into pieces. They told me clearly: “Ayaan, we will be moving to California at the end of this school year.”. Who knew that those 13 words instantly washed away the confidence I had, the security I had, the planning I did for my future, gone in a second. That day at school was the worst day of my life, it felt like time itself was slowing down and I was realizing how many individual pieces of my life are practically being flipped upside down simply by moving. I would have to start over again, make new friends, cement a new path, excel in a new academic system. After tasting the heights of high school, I needed to achieve that again, and that scared me like never before.
To be extremely honest, the preceding 5 months until my school ended in June flew by so fast. Yet everyday it felt like chasing something that was running away from me, no matter how hard I tried to delay it or distract myself, time passed and months became weeks became days until the day of my flight. A one-way flight, how interesting, I usually remember a flight to a destination and then a flight back to Toronto, not this time though. In my suitcase were a couple clothes, items of great value to me like my photo frames, jerseys, memories of my friends, that's all I could take. Fragments of a complete life were being taken across countries to try to piece together a new life in a new place. Stepping onto the plane felt like stepping on a spaceship to a faraway planet, anxiety coursing through my blood vessels yet my countenance was unwavered. In the air all I thought about was what everyone was going to think of a Canadian kid coming to school in California, I wanted to disappear into the seat. I remember landing in LA and feeling the thick heat, something I was not used to and there were so many people, far more than I ever knew. Settling into a new house I was yet to call a home was difficult, a bed that felt foreign but it was mine, so was everything else in this new house, waiting to be given emotional value to.
Now it is the first day of school: Etiwanda High School. At first I thought it was an odd sounding school but I remember walking in. First thing I noticed was that it was an outdoor school and it was huge. My old school had only 900 students, here I was faced with what felt like a gauntlet of 5000 questioning eyes. The new educational system was a complete overhaul of my past comforts, and the sudden increase in class rigor completely derailed my once confident stature. I remembered the academic valor I was shrouded with back home– the distinguished student I once was at my old school now struggled to maintain an average standing at my new school. I saw my once-confident grades fall into C’s and D’s, on top of the added realization that I was undercredited for my efforts back home. The blow to my grades felt like a blow directly to my heart. I sat alone at lunch for quite some time. I wanted nothing more than to be able to return to my old life and old friends.
But then again, like another cinematic cliche, my life began taking an unexpected turn, this time in the positive direction. I realized being complacent was not going to get me anywhere, I had to make myself known. First I addressed my academics, I remember voicing my situation to my teachers, especially in my toughest class: AP Physics. Mr. Schaina and I created a personal study plan, and I had fully committed myself to academic improvement. In addition to passing all my AP exams, my C’s and D’s turned to A’s and B’s across all my classes. Beyond the classroom, I built a web of goal-oriented peers who were more than just friends. These people became my support system and a method to foster mutual encouragement and healthy academic competition. Not only did I integrate within my school’s community, but I also excelled further in my classes. I realized my newfound success was the fruition of my effort to accept the challenge rather than avoid it. I also found success in the school community, I joined many clubs like Link Crew which helped me expand my influence past my class and onto other people as well. I made so many new friends, many of whom I share this very class with and I have nothing but love for these people as they all included me even though I was late to the party. I do not know where I would be without my friends here.
All in all, this rollercoaster of emotions that was moving here truly carved my path into the future and made me the person I am today. Without it, I feel like I would have become complacent and fall into stagnation. This life-changing experience opened so many doors that I could never have done if I remained where I was. If I could go back in time, I probably would not change a single thing because I would not be who I am today and I would never have met these amazing people I am surrounded by. That 15 year old boy who was once extremely anxious and nervous about this trip to uncertainty is now an almost 18 year old at an even higher level than where he once was, and his future, brighter than ever before, is the one I live for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment