How My Best Friend Changed My Life

To truly understand who I am and how my best friend changed my life, I feel the need to share my story. Throughout my life, my mom has always said that my theme song should be 'Miss Independent' by Kelly Clarkson. I've always been someone who did things on my own. It's not that I didn't have any friends; I did. However, I found it much easier to take matters into my own hands. In middle school, my independence both defined and terrified me. I used to believe that because I was so independent, people didn't want to hang out with me. But I soon realized that wasn't true. My independence sometimes held me back from making more friends. Once I acknowledged this, I began to discover who I truly was. I realized that I had been changing myself depending on who I was with, until I met someone who genuinely brought out the best in me.

Going into my freshman year of high school I had a solid group of friends. We did everything together, but around Christmas, I began to notice a change. My so-called friends were doing a lot of things without me, and eventually, my best friend turned everyone against me. Halfway through my first year of high school, I lost all of my friends. I never felt so lost and betrayed before. However, I am now so elated because I have some of the best friends in the entire world. They are all freshmen in college, but they treat me like family. When I was alone they took me in and made me feel wanted again. They helped to shape and show me who I am. I am quirky, shy yet outgoing, responsible, independent, caring, brutally honest, secluded, strong, impulsive, realistic, and much more, but I never would’ve realized this without my friends.

Now at this point you may have either decided that this is just like any other college essay, not what you were looking for, or you actually feel like you are starting to understand who I am. If you couldn’t tell my friends are one of the most important aspects of my life. I don’t have many super close friends, but that doesn’t bother me like it did before. I’m ridiculously self conscious, but before it was a lot worse. I had it set in my mind that because I wasn’t like everyone else I wasn’t normal. I was so hard on myself and it nearly destroyed me. My best friend, Erin, helped me get over this. She is my rock. Our friendship is just so effortless and easy. We know exactly what to do to help the other out, we know everything about the other, and at this point, we might as well be sisters. The prompt essentially stated, “write about something that you think your application would be incomplete without”. My application would be incomplete without Erin. She has been such a large part of my life. She has helped to shape me into the person I am today. She showed me that it’s okay that I am such an honest person. I used to hold my tongue when people said or did something that was morally wrong because I was afraid of the confrontation, but now I’m not as afraid.

So you see for me it wasn’t necessarily a personality trait, specific event, or interest that had an impact on me, but people. Throughout my whole high school career Erin has been by my side, and now that she’s at college herself, it is only fitting that she be a part of my application.