AURIA POLEFKA

“[What was] life-changing for me was when I moved to California with my dad because that was a complete change. I had lived with my mom and brother and step dad my whole life and then moved to California in high school. That was just forcing myself to change, which is actually what I wanted — I wanted to challenge myself. Because there was so much change in such a short amount of time, I feel like California changed how I view things, even though I'm still the same person. So, when I moved here, it was extremely difficult at first because I didn't have anyone, but forcing myself to do this on my own allowed me to meet a whole bunch of people and become close with them. It really showed how life can go from being so down with no hope to being like, ‘Oh, life is really enjoyable, I have meaningful relationships and I have meaningful things in my life and even if everything isn't perfect, it's getting there.’  I guess just going away from a stable situation and having to experience something that’s not stable was very meaningful for me because I think that challenge helped me feel better about change now. If there's any change in my life from here on out, I know that I'm going to be able to get through it just because I handled change before.”