Friends. It's probably one of the most controversial topics of my mind. Friends. Goodness, that word can be described in so many ways. Over the past few years I've learned darker sides to that word. Most of that can be contributed to my life in high school. Junior high or fourth grade was probably the epitome of all friendships. I had a "group" that stuck like glue. Just us against the world. We had each others backs. Yeah, we lost two along the way from elementary to junior high but we also gained a few. And I ventured into a few other friend "groups" and made new individual ones. It was great. Fourth grade I lost Sarah Jeon because she moved to a different school. Now she's at Ayala and I was really excited but my mind made things complicated. Which I will explain later. Seventh grade I didn't really "lose" Joanne Kim. She just moved on to another group. AKA, leadership of Canyon Hills. Eventually she went to Troy and I still miss her, but she had closer friends than me after elementary school. Junior high I got closer to people like Deul Myung, Stephanie Lopez, Raashi Kashyap, and even more so with Jessica Wang than I had in elementary. Natasha Shikhari. I was still close friends with Josephine Cheng and Nina Lundblad- who were pretty much the only ones beside me that remained in our "elementary group." Jo met more friends, as did Nina. Life was pretty good. I didn't have many friends but that didn't bother me. I was happy. Then came high school. I met some of my new best friends of the time. Victoria Sales. The band group; Sara, Chris, Jacob, Michael, etc. Kyle Fong. Some leadership kids here and there. I also met the love of my life, Austin Welch. (hai Welchie) Freshman year was great friend wise. I met A LOT of inspirations that I have now. Most of them upperclassmen. Dayanara, Kevin, Caroline, Tori, Jon, etc. All either in band or leadership. (hah) Freshman year was great. I had great friends, and all of them were there for me. Then came.. the transition from ninth to tenth. I lost a lot of friends. Actually, almost all of them. Not neccessarily lost- excuse my wording. They just felt I didn't care for them, or gave them the attention they needed, or that I preferred some over the other. And to any of you reading this, and you feel this pertains to you, I can promise you, you still cross my mind every day. Not going to lie. Some of you I would love to have as a friend, but your actions prove undeserving. Thank you for being there for me at one point. Now, almost finished with sophomore year, I can say that my really close friends include.. Austin. Then theres Victoria and Kirsten. Josephine and Anjela being special cases. (in a good way). And yeah. five people. Five people that know or may not know where I stand in my life and they know I'm busy. So I don't always have the time to give them extra special attention. Sure, I've met plenty of people this year or from previous that I call my "friends," but they don't make me feel like it. Either because they've (a) talked behind my back (b) not returned my effort (c) they're busy and caught up in their own life, or (d) they don't tell me their feelings towards me as a friend/ some unknown reason. I guess I push people away. Maybe because I feel like I am just so drab and boring and my looks disgust people. I'm not a fun person- I just kinda sit there. Like a rock. I have a big mouth when people actually do give me the light of day and talk to me but besides that I am so incredibly boring. My looks are probably one of my biggest insecurities because I mean- it hurts when people say my hair feels like a wig or they wonder what in the heck I'm wearing. But does that really matter? Eh. I don't know where this is all leading to but I just needed to get things off my chest. I guess it kind of relates to the matter of my sixteenth birthday. I've always wanted a sweet sixteen- but who would I invite? I'd invite an awkward amount of people like I do every birthday and then I end up feeling weird on my birthday and I just want it to be over. I don't have enough friends to have a huge party. It'd be fun to have a party with a few friends and a lot of family. But I've always wanted to know how it's felt to have a group of people that sticks together. Like brotherhood. They're stuck like glue. yeah, they fight but they still get along. I don't feel the least bit included with them, though, which is reasonable. Brotherhood + Tessa with Christen waiting off to the side for Welch to finish doing something. Or group of girls that invite Christen to a sleepover or to one or two things a year with Christen sitting off to the side while no one talks to her. Or Christen sitting off to the side while a group of band kids have a conversation that Christen doesn't know about because she doesn't cuss or hasn't seen that movie or doesn't know nasty references. I guess I just don't know where I belong besides my individual friends. Austin is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me and I honestly don't mind that I have little friends because he makes me feel so comfortable. But he has a group that he's close to besides me. And I guess just sometimes I feel like I want to be a person that isn't forgotten or added when being invited to do something. Just a person that's expected to be there. That's what high school is about. Feeling a sense of belonging. Which is a sense that so many people lack. And I guess that's about it. Maybe I'm crazy. But I'm not asking for anything to change. Just that things turn out okay.
