My body tenses as I approach my somber-faced parents sitting at our dimly lit kitchen table—we are moving, again. This was our third move in six years, and I was eleven.
I turn away from my parents, and trudge up the stairs.

We lived in Appleton for three years, but I expected to spend the rest of my childhood there. But then again, I thought the same for Aurora, Illinois, and Greenville, Wisconsin, too. But now we were moving to Hartland, a suburb of Milwaukee. We might as well have been moving across the country, since I lost contact with all my friends in previous moves.

My dad spent months commuting to his new job in Hartland, while my mom looked for a house. Every time she returned home from house-hunting, I gained hope that the move wouldn’t happen. You can’t move somewhere if you don’t have a house, right? But, it didn’t take long before my mom found a house.

I sat in my friend’s mom’s car during a rained-out softball practice when my mom called with the news. It was actually happening—the move was real.

We left Appleton a month before I went into sixth grade. I entered middle school, a as the new girl—an added disadvantage. The first weeks were the hardest. No one knew who I was, and no one cared. During my first choir class, the teacher told us to introduce ourselves to the kids sitting next to us.

“Hi, I’m Kel—”

The boy sitting next to me cut me off mid-introduction. “I don’t know you, so I’m not going to talk to you,” the boy said, and he turned to talk with the girl sitting on his other side.

Things turned around, though, when basketball season arrived. I had played basketball since second grade, and I knew basketball tryouts would be my opportunity to branch out and meet more people. And through basketball, I met new classmates, and settled into Hartland.

Now, having lived in Hartland for six years, I am happy to call it home. Not a lot of people notice that I have moved three times in my life. Although moving has been a source of grief and struggle for me, it has been an important part of my life, and it has changed me for the better. Through moving, I learned to adapt to new environments, put myself out there, and be open to connecting with and meeting new people.

Being “the new girl” has prepared me for my future and any challenges I have to undergo. And now I know that during my years studying at Madison, I will bring effort, determination, and open-mindedness to make the best out of any situation, because that is what “the new girl” does.