The last day of school is always one of mixed emotions. Students are so excited to see the year coming to an end and summer coming toward them at full speed. They are also sad to lose some friends (either by going to different schools or moving to new places). I do not think there is really any way to fix it other than by putting yourself in the right frame of mind. This is what I had to tell my little sister today (a girl she knew is moving to Germany and she is very sad about it) and what I am feeling that I need to be reminded of right now. Things happen. We're teenagers and, to be frank, we are never the most reliable friends. I know that. However, it still sucks to be left out or to have a friend promise they will stay in touch just to never hear from them again. I know that we have these problems and I know that we all just have to learn to deal with them, it is just life, but it still hurts. So I understand why my little sister was crying about her friend today, I understand why all of the ninth graders at Fairfield were having a hard time. I am having a hard time with a friend situation, myself.
mL is a great friend of mine and I believe I have mentioned her in this blog several times before. I met her in my 8th grade science class. Mrs. Nelson's sixth period, second semester. We spent a while sitting next to each other. I am not going to lie and say that we were best friends from the start. No, we were merely acquaintances for a while. Then, in 9th grade I pretty much just told myself that she was my friend and I started hanging out with her a lot more. We became really good friends. On her birthday that year I had a sleepover at her house. That sleepover ended up spanning the whole weekend. It was just way too much fun. Every time that I have spent a night at her house since it has turned into a weekend long adventure. We have done school projects together and we have had conversations about serious issues. I have helped her through bad times and she has (whether knowingly or not) helped me through a lot as well. We were really close all through 9th grade and we even did some things together last summer (which is major for me because I never do anything with anyone during the summer (with exception of the summer I spent with Morgan)) and it was great.
I bet anyone reading this can hear the 'but' at the end of that sentence.
High school was never something I was nervous about. mL and I had planned our schedules together, and with any luck we would have had the exact same schedule. If that had happened we probably would be a lot closer now than we are. However, I found things that I really wanted to do that mL did not. So we decided that a few differences in our schedules would not hurt.
There is another girl who fits into this tale that I am weaving. Her name, for now, is Fern. Fern is a girl that I have known since... 4th grade? I am not sure. The important thing, though, is that Fern and I never got along. We hung out with the same people but we had completely different personalities and very similar tempers. Needless to say, we got into a lot of arguements during elementary school. Neither of us liked each other. So when we got to junior high we were not around each other much. She found her niche and I found mine. I honestly never ran into her until 8th grade science. Then we pretended as if nothing had ever happened. We were friends and all that was between us was stupid elementary school arguements. Which was true. However, when two people clash like that there is not much room for friendship.
mL and Fern became good friends. I like to think that during 9th grade and the summer after I was closer to mL than Fern was, but I do not know. Anyway, Fern had first lunch while mL and I had second lunch. So never actually had to be around Fern and mL together during 9th grade. I never realized they were such good friends. Then, when we got to high school we all started hanging out together. There was only one lunch. I only had one class with mL and Fern had at least one that I know of. We kind of started to drift apart that first semester. And, though I tell mL that I do not know why that is, I know exactly why. It did not take very long to realize that Fern really did get on my nerves. Now that we all had only one lunch, Fern was always around. She was constantly talking to mL and they were becoming closer by the day. I was becoming farther and farther (Which I do not mind, I think it happened for a reason. I found my true best friend. I can honestly tell Kara anything and even if we disagree we will always still be friends. She is like another sister to me.) and I honestly hardly noticed it.
There was this big weight being held over all of us, though. All year long we knew that it was going to be our last year with mL. We knew that we would not have all summer with her and that in the blink of an eye she would be gone. Second semester came along and mL and I started talking again, but we had lost that bond that we had had before. She was still one of my closest friends and I still loved her (I always will) but we had gone four and a half months without talking to each other hardly at all. We found out when and where mL was moving. It was time to start planning for her big goodbye.
She and I have plans. Big ones that will hopefully follow through. We will have one more sleep over weekend. We will watch some of the movies on my list of "Movies mL Has Not Seen That I Love" and maybe we will go to Lagoon. However, there are people who would be mad at me for even considering taking a weekend of our now limited time with her.
Fern now considers mL her best friend. I do not care about that. However, the fact that Fern thinks that she owns all of mL's time before she moves makes me so mad. I am going to miss her to. More than she will ever know. mL was the first friend that I ever got really close to. She was the first girl who I let really know me. Her was family was the first (outside of my own) that I ever really became comfortable with (and still remains the only one).
What hurts even worse is that there all of these activites being planned, one that I even suggested, that I'm really not even being informed about. I do not know if it is just because I have been busy or what, but it sucks because I am going to miss mL too. I want memories of her last few weeks here also.
mL and I have all of these ideas for after she moves: I am going to go visit her, she is going to come visit me, and even though she will be living in a completely different state she will be forced to come on my senior trip with me. However, I know how hard it is for people to actually implement plans when they are living completely different lives in completely different places. I do not want to become the old friend who turns into simple emails here and there. It would suck to have another friend go away without some majorly good memories to look back on. I need proof. I need pictures. Just the memories are never enough. Memories fade, they turn into a fog that comes in every once in a while. I do not have pictures! I am not making memories because I can not come to things when I am given the details the minute it is happening. And it sucks that I am becoming an afterthought already.
So, I understand. I get why my little sister is upset that a friend she has not hung out with in a while moved to Germany today. I am also beginning to feel very hypocritical about telling her that she should not be upset. I am upset. I am really upset. I will be all right, though. I know that. I need to really grasp, though. It is one thing to know something and another to feel it. I need to feel that it will be fine. I need to feel that mL moving is not going to absolutely, totally, and completely suck for a long time. Right now I do not feel that. Right now I just can not picture mL not being around. It seems impossible to me. And it really, really, really sucks.
