“Caroline, come on! Let’s go!” yells Zoey Rosa (12), as she playfully drags her friend out the front door and into the waiting car. 

Sunlight wafts through the girls’ summertime ‘home base,’ close friend Caroline Yager’s (12) house, as Caroline, a self-identifying homebody, jokingly protests. Zoey recalls the success of her endless urging, and the friends are soon packed into her car, on their way to just another adventure made possible through Zoey’s ardent initiative. This time, the Sierra Vista viewpoint. Next time, San Francisco. With headstrong Zoey, anything is possible.

“I value my independence as a person. I think the ability to be able to do things for myself instead of always asking others,” Zoey said, prompting her to obtain her license as soon as possible.

“She’s a lot more responsible and mature. She’s like another adult in the family. She goes to work, she’s just very self-sufficient,’” Caroline said.

In fact, Zoey’s immense maturity and independence are the result of her uncommon childhood experiences. Growing up within a small, tight-knit family with only her father and her grandmother, Zoey values familial love and true relationships. 

“My dad, at the time, a couple years ago, wasn’t the most financially stable, so I couldn’t just pull free money and spend just to go eat and go out with my friend. Then I decided to get a job, and although my parents – my dad and my grandma – don’t expect a lot from me, they expect me to be able to do things for myself. The way they take on life kind of set me up for the future,” Zoey said. 

Zoey especially respects her father for showing her the tremendous amount of love that he did, despite becoming a single father at age 19. She admires his ability to take responsibility, his resilience and “initiative in turning his life around,” even though he faced many tough situations. Like her father, she hopes to echo these values in her daily activities and show the people around her as much love as he did, holding her hand as he gently guided her into this world. 

“[My dad’s] mentality is ‘nothing is ever permanent.’ He always used to tell me that even though today wasn’t the best day, tomorrow’s a new day, and it’s up to me to make it a good one,” Zoey said. “Family was one of the most important things to him, and even when he was struggling and his friends didn’t stay around, the people that he could always call up were his family, so I think that his importance of family also influences me to hold the same mentality about my family.” 

In fact, Zoey’s father now sees himself in Zoey. He sees resilience, he sees maturity, and most of all, he sees her independence. He never worries about her future, nor her ability to take care of herself and those around her. 

“I love being able to watch her progress in life. She has evolved into quite a young woman now. She talks, she stands up for herself, she’s caring, she’s loving. She never asks me for anything, she always does things by herself,” he said. “I don’t ever have to worry about where she’s at or what she’s doing. I can always count on her, and I’m always impressed with the work she does.”

Just as precious as her father is Zoey’s grandmother, who Zoey lovingly refers to as “mom.” After her grandmother gifted Zoey her first camera in middle school, Zoey immediately took up the activity and made use of her skills as a member of the middle school’s yearbook, “messing around” with the modules and settings until she understood the process. Along with discovering art in high school, Zoey decided to put the two together by creating mixed medias, such as swathing acrylic paint over a newspaper cutout or a collage of her photographs. 

“I always wanted to continue taking up photography, but then with the painting thing, it was just something new and different, but then because I had that in mind after I took the painting class, over the summer I continued to continue painting,” Zoey said. “It’s stress relieving and also just for fun, and on top of that, I enjoy the artistic side because my uncle is an artist, and my aunt also likes to draw, so I like being surrounded by that.”

In  Zoey’s AP Photography class, her relationship with close friend Ayla Tanurhan (12) blossomed through their shared interest in integrating photography with more traditional art techniques. Ayla calls art “intimate,” and sharing her “artistic experience” with Zoey has only given them more opportunities to grow and inspire each other. 

“I think my favorite memory is this road that we drive up to where we watch the sunset and we make art and take photography there. I think we both have an appreciation for nature, and it creates an environment where it’s easier to make art and feel less unconstrained by society and expectations,” Ayla said. “We both like to just  take a step back and free our minds.”

Caroline, who also takes art, notices how Zoey’s personality reveals itself in her work.

“She uses photography to look at things through an abstract perspective, like the perspective that others have viewing the world versus her own,” Caroline said. “Her experiences are kind of different from your average Harker student, but she really has a gift for documenting her own life and the experiences that she and other people have experienced very accurately and rawly.”

Zoey’s most precious and valuable experiences, boiled down, are the ones that she has shared with those closest to her. 

“I’m most happy when I’ve done for myself [something] that is making better changes towards my life. But obviously, I couldn’t have done that without my friends and my family, my grandma, so I’m happy about the relationships that I have with people and the memories I created with people over the years,” Zoey said. “I’m not really an emotional person, but when it comes down to it, I would say the people I fall back on are always my friends and family that I rely on, and they definitely have always come through.”

Smiling to herself at the mere mention of her best friend, Caroline recalls the thousands of memories she’s shared with Zoey, knowing that there will be millions more to come. 

“Don’t underestimate Zoey. She’s the main character of some crazy cool epic that hasn’t come to a conclusion yet, not for a long time.” Caroline said.