Tasha Thomas
English 101 – Section 018
14 September 2012
Do I Really Need Them?
Do
you remember making friends in the first grade? That was one of the best parts
about being young, having friends, running around in the park, living the care
free life I know we all wish that we could bring back if that was possible. The
one thing I always remembered wanting to stay with my friends, crying to my
mom, pulling on her pants leg “mommy do I have to leave?” That may be why I’m
not to fond of good byes, I like to say I’ll see you later cause I don’t like
the idea that good bye could turn into talk to you never. Leaving people that I
enjoy being around has always been a struggle for me. So moving inevitably was
going to be a strenuous task. This wasn’t like when I was going into 3rd
grade when my mom told me I would make new friends and I did what mommy said
because she was the boss and knew everything. I was 17 years 10 months and 28
days old when I moved this time I was no longer nine years old anymore. This
was going to affect me. I felt like
moving never changed. I packed and spent my weekends in the house
packing, and throwing away, then packing some more and throwing more away to be
surrounded in a small apartment by 178 items, ranging from boxes to lamps. We
had it all in that place, that was my home I was cleaning out but I didn’t
think it would be my life being cleaned out. All of my friends didn’t
understand that my parents were moving to be closer to me so that I could have
a home closer to where I went to college. I knew that me and some of my friends would lose
contact I had heard it from all my friends already in college but I didn’t
expect to lose them ALL. But losing my friends didn’t start after I left for
college it started before.
I didn’t slowly
just lose my friends they disappeared. It went from being the crew, Janelle,
Domonique, Jessica and I, to being Briana all alone. Yes I sound lonely and I was
lonely. I was moving to a new place with people I had never met, a culture I was
not used to. I was going from New York rudeness to Southern hospitality. Now I knew
it wouldn’t be easy but I had always counted on having friends there to help me
through keep me company in my new empty house for now. But I realized that I didn’t even have people
wanting to keep me company now. Of course I had my now ex-boyfriend there but
at the end of the day I didn’t only want to leave with hanging out with one
person. I thought it was pretty messed up that my “friends” hadn’t even
tried to keep in touch with me. They were supposed to be my friends and we had
all talked about keeping in touch but summer came and the time began to wind
down until I left and I still got no phone calls, no texting. Nothing. I began
to think “Was it my fault that not one of my friends wrote me? Or was I at
fault because I didn’t really make the effort either?” Maybe its mutual thing, I knew that
conversations went two ways but I let my pride hold me back too much. I
wouldn’t allow myself to beg for people to talk to me. I had lost friends
before, it wasn’t the idea of not having the friends that bothered me the most,
and it was the idea that I was going to be alone. It was like walking into a
dark room, I didn’t know where things were or what stood before me, and being
in the dark is a lot easier when you have someone to hold your hand. Now I am a
friendly person so finding friends shouldn’t have been the problem it was the
idea that something to stable was no longer there anymore. I felt like I was going through that first
break up, my heart was crushed but the people that I would have ran to in that
situation was not there for me. So I cried and I thought about all the good
times that I had with my friends, the trips to the movie and never actually
watching them, or going to the city for someone’s birthday, walking to parties
around the corner from someone’s house. I had a million moment travelling
through my head and no matter how aggravated I was in that moment I wasn’t anymore.
No matter how much I hated that they never knew what to watch or that we never
could go the whole night without someone arguing with someone else, I strangely
missed the things I once hated. So I spent
the month before coming to Upstate, feeling more alone then I had ever felt and
to make it even better I ended up with Mono.
After
getting sick with Mono, spending about 2 weeks sitting in bed I figured out
that I didn’t really need people who didn’t need me. I was going to meet and
greet with a plethora of people at school. I learned my lesson. People will
come and go but there will always be more people. So I started to find friends from
Upstate through twitter, I befriended my roommate and many more people. Only a
few people have written me since I have gotten here, my best friend Janelle and
my friend Kristina but other than that I had nothing to show that people missed
me.
I don’t think my
friends noticed that I am gone for a very long time. I have no family left in New
York so I won’t really have a reason to go back. It’s not like I just went away
to college like most of them did, I moved away for college. So maybe my friends
saw it as me just going to school in another place and I would be back home, but now my
home is in South Carolina.
New York is not where I was going back to and that is just how it is now. I eventually
ended up realizing that life goes on, people cross your path for a reason, to
give you memories you could never forget. I will never forget the friends I hung
out with in high school because ultimately I did need them, I just didn’t need
them for the purpose I thought I need them for.
No comments:
Post a Comment