While during high school I spent most of my days on the upper east side of Manhattan, this was not always the case. I live in Westchester, a suburb of New York City. My extended family lives at most ten minutes from my house and my friends live close to me as well. Westchester was the only place I had ever thought of as home until high school. My friends have known me since I was five years old; they know my family and my background. The thought of leaving them and my hometown to go to a different school in Manhattan had never crossed my mind until I was 15. The decision to switch schools was my parents.
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Ever since then, I attended school between Madison and Park Avenue. I slept in Manhattan occasionally during the week but the majority of time I came back to Westchester every school night after a long day that ended earliest at 4:45. In Manhattan my family was not around the corner. It was I as an individual rather than a girl who always had someone to pick her up and drop her off. It was tiring but worth it because of the many different people I now call my best friends. I was able to gain a different perspective of my surroundings and learn how to be more independent by leaving my familiar area. One part of my life was filled with mobility and growing as an individual, learning my way around the busy city and adjusting to a new environment. The other was my comfort zone and it was a quieter, slower version of my life.
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