The most important year of high school, my senior year, I was forced to move more than 1,000 miles away from the state that I have grown up in my entire life. I have lived in Phoenix, Arizona my whole life until now. The move to Texas has presented many challenges for me, but nothing I can’t handle.

Phoenix was nearly perfect. I had a job at Fry’s Food store. I had worked there for almost a year and was at the top of the seniority list. I had an amazing girlfriend, named Tessarae, almost all of my friends I had known for several years some since the second grade. We were all so close and pretty much always doing something together.

One night in the middle of July it all changed. My family and I were having dinner and my dad had some news to share. He told us how he had many phone interviews that went well, and he was going to be flying to Dallas for a in-person interview. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe this was happening. My parents asked me what I thought about the idea and the first words out of my mouth were, “No”. I was mad. I got up from the table and went to my room. I couldn’t understand why my parents would do this to me.

They came in shortly after and began to reassure me that I would like Texas, that I would make new friends and that I should give it a try. When my dad went on his interview, he called me and told me the company wanted him and he liked them, and he told me he had the biggest knot in his stomach when they were talking because he didn’t want to make me mad and resent them in the future. He said he wouldn’t do this intentionally to hurt me. My mom has wanted to move to Texas for years and years, and my dad said we may not get another opportunity for a few years. I asked if he could just wait one more year, and he said he prayed and my parents thought it was the right thing to do.

Saying goodbye was tough. My friends and I went out to eat to our place we always went to eat together, a few days before I left. I went to the Mac Miller concert with my girlfriend the night before we packed everything in the U-Haul. I tried to spend as much time with my friends as I could. I wasn’t sure when I was going to see them again. We left at 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 11. We had a long journey and made it after 2 days, a total of 21 hours of driving.

I’m getting used to Texas little by little. School is a very different. Legacy is a huge school; I came from a 1,600-1,800 kid school, to a over 2,000 kid school. I am getting lost, but after a few days I get it and get the feel for where I am going. This is a huge change to me, and I hate change.

I miss all my friends in Arizona and especially my girlfriend. I miss my school, my job, everything. I wish I would have taken things more serious in Arizona, and not taken things for granted. I had the mindset that nothing is going to change, everything is perfect, and life threw me a curveball. I was, and still am, planning to go to college in Arizona. I should be attending ASU, Arizona State University, and get a journalism degree from the Walter Cronkite school.

This is going to be a challenging year, with many changes, but a year that I are determined to make it through.There is no way of getting around it, I have to go through it.