I used to hate Kansas. Coming from Colorado, Kansas was just a big empty field where my grandparents lived. I never thought that one day I would call a town like Garden City home, but here we are. Five years ago I moved from Colorado Springs to Garden City and at first, I hated it here. It was so flat and windy, there was nothing to do and I had to leave behind all my friends. Over these five years however, I have grown to see the simplistic beauty of Garden City. The colorful skies that seem to stretch forever, the quaint but amazing history of it all, but most of all, I’ve come to see the beauty in the people. Something that stands out coming from a much bigger city is how well you know everyone. Every person has their own story that would go silent in a bigger city like Colorado Springs, but here it echoes throughout the town, the little details that often go unnoticed yet they stand out in their own unique way. So many people that would be totally absent from my life had I lived anywhere else and yet, I can’t imagine life without them. What would I do in class without all of my friends to laugh and mess around with, my work? I feel like nothing has happened, like I’ve just kept moving forward, but as I look back, I see how much has changed. I thought I was going to learn how to code and become a computer science major back in Colorado, now I am planning to be a film major at a school in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s crazy how much has changed without me even really noticing. So many people that have become important pillars in my life without there ever being a moment where it felt like a pivotal change, even when it was. The last four years especially have flown by and there are so many things that I wish I could go back and do one last time. But as I move forward I find that for me, high school was never about learning things like math or history, it was always learning about me and who I am.