when i was in kindergarten, my favorite color was purple. i remember crying one time because i went to color something with a purple crayon, but it was really just the dark blue one. eventually, i graduated on to an unnecessarily vast hatred for purple, and i liked light blues more. my mom bought me a purple composition book for my 1st grade class, and i looked at her like she was crazy because she knew i wanted the blue one. i was 6, and i cared way too much about the cheap pattern on the front of the notebook i would lose within 4 weeks. my mom got a little bit angry and my puzzled look, and she said she bought me the purple one because it was my favorite color. but it wasn’t? it was blue.
a few years later, i was in 4th grade. i woke up one morning to a fuzzy cat’s whiskers on my face, and i laughed. i entered the kitchen, and there he was: my papaw at my house, bright-eyed and bushy tailed at 6:00 in the morning, and i… was nothing less than utterly exhausted from my subpar sleep. he was there to take me on a field trip, so we went about our day, and when we came home, my mom was crying. they had put our cat down sometime during the day; he was sick.
i began my rebellious phase in 7th grade, and truth be told? i regret most of it, but don’t tell my parents that. i made the mistake of sneaking out of church to go see the guy i was dating at the time, and my mom found out when she read my journal. she didn’t even have the energy to scream, she just spoke. i left the next morning for a weekend-long venture field trip, and two and a half months later, i was starting fresh at a private school just off of lakeland drive in jackson.
i made some really good friends there, and while it wasn’t an ideal situation, i was somehow able to make the best of it. by the end of the year, i was finally ready to continue the chapter i had left off at my old school.
i went back, and i made three really good friends: two of which, i still keep in touch with. they were amazing, and they paved the way for my freshman year of high school. they invited me everywhere, they introduced me to new people, and they made my life better. over the summer, they kinda… dropped off the face of the earth. i was left without friends, places to go, things to do; i was pretty alone. i eventually became okay with it, but i held on to hope that things would get better.
my mom took a job at my rival school, and i was less than excited. the little bit of hope that i still had in my old school was dwindling, but i was clinging to what i could. i went to our football games, worked a few soccer games, and spent every free minute in my favorite history teacher’s classroom. two schools later, and i still get the urge to save tik toks about his coffee addiction to show him during lunch.
the school never got better, and the hope i was clinging to? died almost instantly. i had a fight with my two remaining friends, and i called my mom to get me the hell out of that school – i couldn’t take it anymore. so i moved schools again, halfway through my sophomore year.
in a month and a half, i made more friends than i’ve ever had in my entire life, and i was on top of the world. pelahatchie opened so many doors for me, strictly because the students and staff were the most kind-hearted people i had ever met. they encouraged each others’ growth, and they truly wanted the best for each other; at least, the people i stayed around.
more things that came crashing down: my pelahatchie high school experience, in the middle of spring break, when it finally dawned on me that i would never be going back to that school. COVID-19 had finally halted activity in this state, and it wouldn’t open back up for a while.
i saw my best friend twice before leaving for MSA.
when i got here, i had a few friends already. we talked and we hung out for about a week until about 5 of those friendships fell apart.
we came back, and everyone was here together. i made a few more friends, and we started to build our groups. i made one really close friend… then i made one really important decision, and our friendship crumbled like a burnt cookie. i’m still deciding if that one really important decision was worth it, because it’s the entire reason i decided to write this:
nothing lasts forever, and even realistic expectations will always fall short.
