I was 16 years old living in the suburbs of Charlotte, North Carolina. My days consisted of waking up before the sun rose, spending 8 hours at a school with thousands of kids, struggling in the southern heat to get through soccer practice and then trying my best to do my homework, eat dinner and get enough sleep to do it all over again the next day.

I was living a life in a rotation. I felt exhausted by the monotonous patterned lifestyle that I had developed after being in the same place basically my entire life. My friends were amazing, but I needed more. Academically, I was doing well, but I felt lost. My family was supportive, but at the end of a long day, I couldn’t give them my complete energy because I was so worn out.

Soccer had become my entire life. I was playing basically year-round and spent almost every weekend traveling for away games. I was tired of it and didn’t know if I wanted to continue my life-long quest of becoming the next Mia Hamm. My dad had always done business overseas, and there had been a discussion in the past of moving internationally, but I never took them serious enough to be invested in it. Until one day, I walked into my kitchen to find my mom looking at houses in the Cayman Islands.

Confused, I wondered why she was wasting her time. After a few weeks of optimistic discussions with my parents, it was decided. We were moving to the Cayman Islands.

At first, I was ecstatic. I was finally breaking free of the tedious, draining life I was living and doing something unique and new. However, I slowly became scared. What if no one likes me? How am I going to make friends? What if I don’t find any hobbies? What if I’m the loser new- kid?? I was terrified, but eventually, July turned to August, we packed up all of our stuff and moved to an island that had as many people as the Carolina Panthers football stadium on game day.

At first, it sucked. I had to wear a uniform to school, which I hated, and I barely knew anyone. I felt so lost that I resented everyone around me and began to question why I couldn’t adjust. Soon enough, soccer tryouts started, and I made the team. The commitment wasn’t nearly as much as it had been in Charlotte, which took a lot of stress off of me. However, October rolled around and I still wasn’t happy. I had made a couple friends but I didn’t click with them as immediately as I had hoped. One day, I saw a sign for musical tryouts. I had always been a jock who obsessed over soccer and didn’t sing unless it was in the shower. Needless to say, auditioning for the musical was way out of my element. To this day, I’m still not quite sure what came over me, but something in me was intrigued by the audition. I needed something to change, and it clearly wasn’t going to happen externally (I was stuck in this place), so I knew it had to come from me.

I auditioned for the musical and to my surprise, I got a pretty big role- perks of going to a super small school. The journey was completely outside of my comfort zone as if I wasn’t far enough out of it already. After months of preparation, the final shows in December finally came and I was crazy nervous. I had never done anything remotely similar to this, but as the curtains opened, I knew there was no going back.

For our three-night run, I stepped onto that stage and gave it my all, despite me not really knowing what I was doing. By the end of it, I was so glad that it was over. I conquered a fear and surprised myself. I think doing the musical proved to myself that I was in a place that I could be myself, feel comfortable and have fun in. This was a massive turning point for me and afterward, I continued through school and was feeling better.

However, my birthday was two months later and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I felt like no one would care if it was my birthday because I was still somewhat new, and I didn’t want to cause too much attention to myself. Little did I know. One day, I was sitting in my room when I heard a knock on my door. Assuming it was my mom, I yelled: “Come in!”. In to my room comes a group of five kids from my class carrying cupcakes and presents while singing ‘Happy Birthday’. I was so surprised, I wish I could’ve seen the look on my face. People cared about me! I had friends! These were two things I really didn’t think were true until this moment.

It made me realize that it wasn’t the place I was living, or the uniform I had to wear, or the people around me- it was me. I had the power to open up and let the move inspire me, rather than destroy me. All I had to do was realize that I couldn’t change the situation, so I had to change my approach.

Sitting in my room brooding about how upset I was was not going to move me back to North Carolina or magically bring my old friends to me. The opportunities, friendships, and adventures were all there. I just had to stop feeling sorry for myself and start making it happen for myself. The move was definitely hard at the beginning, and I’m not going to pretend that it all just fell into place. I had to work for it and focus on forming relationships and taking opportunities that I couldn’t find anywhere else. As soon as my mindset changed, everything changed, and it ended up being one of the most fun, rewarding and exciting times in my life that I wouldn’t change for the world.