Many people find it hard to make friends, especially after transferring schools, but junior Brooklyn Parish shows that being patient and kind can lead to friendship anywhere.

Parish transferred schools in sixth grade and has been able to make strong and lasting friendships that have impacted her life in a very positive way. One of those is one of Parish’s best friends, senior Faith Barbee. 

“Brooklyn sat next to me in class. I don’t know if we talked that day or not? I know I considered her a friend right away, but I was a really friendly kid, so I don’t think it was the same way around,” Barbee said.

Even though Parish had just transferred schools, she was capable of finding future friends in the first few days. Parish shows how even in lonely situations we can still find friends to help us along the way.

While Parish is very nice and friendly, she can take a while to get to know. She is “not much of an open person,” according to Barbee.

Barbee described what it was like getting to know Parish: “I guess slow? Not too open about things if I remember correctly. She was kind and friendly though, so I stuck around.” 

Parish is a very creative person, loving to make art and drawings. But art is not the only place her creativity shines through, one can also see it in her humor, showing itself in the form of a sort of friend initiation.

Parish has given many of her friends a test of sorts, not to be taken too seriously, but as a confirmation of one’s friendship with her. A very creative way of telling someone that they want to be friends.

“[Brooklyn was] pretty open because I knew her best friend. She told me all I had to do was text her at 3 a.m. to become her friend, and I did,” Payton Gresham, one of Parish’s friends that were given this test of sorts, said.

While it may take time to get to know Parish, her friends say that it would be much harder for a friendship with her to fade away. Brooklyn has managed to keep strong connections with many of her friends throughout the years following up to high school–even managing to keep friendships with people out of state.

Even if a friendship seems rocky at first, or hits a rough patch, Parish has shown to be a kind, caring and mature person. And even if she’s not seeing her friends, she still keeps a strong and growing connection. Barbee shared how their friendship changed over the years.

“I guess it’s kind of just fluctuated as life has gone on,” Barbee said. “To elaborate a little further, we used to hang out a lot back in middle school, but now we see each other periodically. But I would say our friendship has grown stronger as time has gone along, we just don’t act like kids anymore and are constantly around each other.”

Parish shows us that even in changing times and changing places, you can still make friends and have strong connections with one another.