Before and After

The start of 2019 I started freshmen year. I had many friends and so many friend groups I was apart of. I had many upperclassmen tell me “you will not have the same friends now when you get to be in our grade”, I never listened. I always thought these friends would be my friends for life. This was a friend group of about 5 other girls and every weekend we would hangout in my friends camper and eat popcorn, dance, play music, play vollyball outside, and go into her pool she had. We hungout every weekend and we all were inseprable. My freshmen year was a good year to have friends and have a good time with people I thought were good people for me.

My sophomore year I did not have phone to contact any of my friends. I was basically alone because Maine got hit with the worst pandemic COVID-19. Nobody was allowed out of their homes or even to get groceries or hygeine products. Everyone was wearing a mask and they got very upset if you got close to them. I had one lady yell at me as I was waiting in line to get my perscripton at the local Rite Aid. She exclaimed “get your child away from me because she may have COVID!” to my mom. My mom looked puzzled for a second as this was our first time out since the mandated quarentine dropped. This was a very weird time in history for me. I thought that COVID was going to be around forever and we were never going to be able to live life “normally” ever again.

The beginning of my junior year the mandate was dropped and everyone was finally allowed to get out of the house. That means I would get to see all of my friends again and finally be able to reconnect with them after so long of not seeing them! As soon as I walk through the doors to the school building I immediately start looking for my friend group. The time we had lost due to COVID brought my whole friendgroup apart. They also had phones and I did not due to choices I was making at the time. I had no way of contacting my friends so they decided to kick me out of the friend group. I walked up to all of them and they ignored me as if I was not there. I then said “hey guys how have you been?” and only one out of the five answered. I knew that I was alone at this point and had nobody to be friends with. I had to start looking for new friends. How could they just let go of all the memories we all had together? This was a very sad time for me because after I put the pieces together I still stayed with them until the bell rang because I found it more embarrassing to leave then stay. They all had inside jokes I did not understand. When I went home that evening I told my mom everything. She is known for giving the best advice. She told me “not everyone will be your friend. You can’t expect that from people, because you don’t like everyone either.” That was the realest thing I had heard that day and I know people do grow apart.

I’m thankful my mom taught me the things she has in my 18 years of living. She is a very wise woman that will help me with whatever I need. I’m now a senior and I do not have many friends but I am okay and content with that because I know that not everyone is like you and not everyone will like you in life and that is totally fine. You have to be content within yourself and confident enough to know that you will be okay being alone and not having many friends.

“Custer County District High School, Miles City” by dave_mcmt is licensed under CC BY 2.0.