Gomenasai

I never thought my life would turn out like this. Pure and simple, isn’t it? No, anything but. Life is troublesome and complicated. I never enjoyed life, but there were few things that I did love. And it all happened in Seventh Grade. Back then, I rarely had friends, I rarely hung out with people, and I was a loner. I’ll admit it. I wasn’t in shape, I was overweight, and I didn’t know how to talk to boys. I was constantly getting picked on about my size, and mostly all I could do was take it in. Back then, teachers didn’t get involved, and didn’t care about you. The only way they would care is if you were competing in something, like football or one of the top students in the school. I was neither. I wasn’t very smart back then, nor was I athletic. No one paid much notice to me. I spent my first week of Seventh Grade eating alone. I was more interested in anime and mangas back then than anything. I tried hard to draw, but I wasn’t very good. I was more talented at writing than I was at anything.

I played basketball a few times when I was little, but I missed a lot of practices and games because my parents were divorced and had joint custody. I saw my father every other weekend, and the games were normally on the weekends. My father came to see me play once, but I never wanted him to see how horrible at the sport I was. I just prayed that the game would be over soon, and it was. However, we won our first game then, and, although we came in last place because of me, we still played hard. But I never played basketball again after that.

In Elementary School, I had very few friends. Two girls, who were twins, and a boy named Robert, were the closest to consider being my friends. I tried hard to fit into different groups. Mostly in the jock group that included David Guerrero, Jenny Acquino, a tall boy named Melvin, and a tall, stalky girl named Catherine. They played basketball a lot and played soccer a lot, not to mention were the smartest kids in the class. I tried hard to fit in with them, but couldn’t. The main reason I tried to hang out with them was because I had a crush on David, who I used to chase around the school because he made fun of me. I never had a boyfriend, and only came close to kissing a guy when I went to Sixth Grade Camp, but to no avail. People usually look at me, and they think, “Shamu.” Unfortunately, that became my nickname in Seventh Grade. But in Seventh Grade, I seemed to have changed.

On the first Friday of Seventh Grade, I was planning on spending lunch alone on the large blue stage in the quad, and look over my anime magazine that I got nearly every month called Shonen Jump. Another girl with glasses walked over with a group of other kids and noticed me reading the magazine, and she asked to look at it. I gave it to her, and she looked through it, paying particular attention to the fanart and comics in Yu-Gi-Oh! She called a dark boy with glasses over, and soon, I seemed to be in a group on my own. In this group of people was a girl named Mariah, a Philippine girl named Rachel, a black girl with glasses named Michel’le, the boy named Greg, the girl named Norma, and soon I became connected with other kids in the school, like a black girl named Elizabeth, and two siblings that seemed the most popular in the school, Kristine and Jon Wagner. Soon, I had friends. I was happy. These people were my friends, especially Norma. She and I shared a common interest. Anime and manga. I introduced mangas to her, and she got involved with them. She introduced art to me. She was one of the best artists I’ve seen, and soon, I tried to mimic her technique, trying to draw almost as well as she could. I seemed happy now.

Although I was not the smartest kid in the class, I had good grades, always kept in the A-B average. But slowly, my grades began to drop. I neglected my homework, I neglected projects, refusing to get them done. My attitude began to change from bad to worse. I began disrespecting my parents a lot, I began arguing and talking back. I even became a smart-ass. Norma taught me how to curse and how to stick up for myself, and she taught me bits of Japanese language. My grades soon became C-D-F average. My math was horrible, my PE was horrible because I hated exercising, and my World Cultures was horrible. My parents soon punished me by taking everything away for the rest of the year, and told me not to hang out with my friends anymore, claiming they were bad influences on me.

Well, knowing me, I disobeyed them. I hung out with Norma and them, and I started listening to their kind of music. I got into Disturbed, Korn, Limp Biskit, and all of those kinds of bands. Soon, I seemed to care more about my friends than I did about myself. My self-esteem went even lower than usual, and my self-respect went even lower. But, by the end quarter, I found myself having a boyfriend. His name was Matthew, and he was one of my friends. We weren’t even going out or dating. We had one date, and that was when he came over to my house to meet my parents and watch a movie. One of his favorite movies, the Birds. I hated that movie, thinking it was boring. However, I had a boyfriend, and I was happy. Matthew hung out with Norma a lot, went to the movies with her, while I couldn’t hang out with them. I went to my dad’s frequently, and acted the same around him, but he said nothing.

At the end of the quarter, I began to think if Matthew was cheating on me with Norma, and, although he denied, I still felt paranoid. I wasn’t on drugs, I wasn’t drinking, and I wasn’t smoking, but I was under the affect of a non-physical drug. Influence. I still loved my friends, and would do anything for them. But my grades got so horrible that my parents threatened to transfer me to a private school, and sure enough, they did.

I went to a different school, a Pentacostal school where I had to wear a uniform, couldn’t wear make-up, couldn’t paint my nails, and couldn’t cut my hair. On my first day there, I felt the same way I did my first day of Seventh Grade. Nervous, and worried that I wouldn’t make any friends. I did. On that day, I met my best friend for two years, Tiffany Theophim. She was one of the nicest, sweetest girls I met. My grades started to go up, my attitude began to change from horrible to good, and I made a huge adjustment to my life. I still kept in contact with Norma and my friends from seventh grade, and my grades were at an B-C average. Tiffany, and the people at the private school were nice, and, although some people made fun of me there, I grew to have friends like girls like Beth, Denise, and Brianna. They were my four close friends. I even started to have a crush on a senior named Lars, but it ended by the end of the year.

In Ninth Grade, my grades went even higher. They became A-B average, which was where I usually was. I gained more friends, although stayed at the private school. It was easier to understand my work, and everyone in the school seemed to like me. However, I hadn’t talked to Norma in a long time, and when I next contacted her through an e-mail, something hurt me so much that I felt I wanted to die.

Norma replied back saying that she never wanted me to e-mail her or talk to her again. She said she knew all of things I had been saying behind her back and that we weren’t friends anymore. That hurt, not only by the fact she didn’t want to see me again, but by the fact she accused me of something I hadn’t done. I never made fun of her, and soon afterwards, I discovered the no one seemed to like me anymore from Seventh Grade. Rachel and the others never talked about me again. Although I stayed in contact with some friends, like Michel’le and Anthony, I never heard from Norma, Greg, or Matthew again. I know they hate me, and what’s worse, they hate me for something I hadn’t done.

I spent a few nights crying myself to sleep because I was hurt by that. But my mother told me that over time, friends began to be lost, and that’s what kids do. They spread rumors about someone they may not be true, but seem true to everyone else. She told me that I had better friends now, friends that cared about me, friends that didn’t make fun of me, and friends that were good influences on me. She pointed out how I had changed over two years since Seventh Grade. She told me how my self-esteem went up dramatically, how my self-respect, and respect for others, rose. She told me how my attitude changed dramatically, although I still occasionally argue with her. She especially pointed out how my grades went up. She told me not to focus on this matter so much about my old friends, but focus on the future and the friends I have now.

I still smile at the memories I have of Norma and them, and I still smile at my mother’s words. She was right. I couldn’t linger on this matter too much, and I had to focus on the future, and the friends I had. And right then, I knew I would be okay. I knew I would be fine.

Just recently, though, I saw Norma again. And it seemed that I would be okay. My mother, brother, and I went into a Nail Salon where my mother was getting her nails done, and just before we left, I saw a girl in the back with her mother that looked exactly like Norma. The girl even looked at me, and when I told my mother about this, she said it probably was Norma, and that she probably thought I looked familiar to her, as well. When I saw her, I was more than just tempted to go over and say hi to her, but I didn’t. My mother said some friendships are better when left un-saved. She told me how I had grown up so much, and that saving my friendship with Norma was going to do more harm than good. She was right, again.

However, not a day goes by that I don’t think of my friends. Back in Seventh Grade, Norma taught me a word in Japanese that had a wonderful meaning to it. A word that I hardly ever used, but I always remembered. And, although I hadn’t done anything, it still never hurts to use it. To everyone I knew and loved, gomenasai. “I’m sorry.”