So on Monday, I decided to go skating with my friends and was delighted to find out that Pepper was going to be there, too! It was kind of a surprise, since I didn't know if she'd be able to make it--after all, it's about a forty-five minute drive for only two hours of ice skating, which she hasn't done much before. But still, it warmed me right up to walk into that building and be ambushed by my best friend in a red coat.
There weren't very many people when I got there, but soon enough most of my friends were. We just skated around and around, the funny thing is that even if you're in a freezing building doing repetitive motions with the blades strapped to the feet of everyone around you, yourself included, you can still enjoy yourself just because friends are around you.
There are Emilee and Nicole, who sit with me on the bus. We talk about books and boys and Halloween and all sorts of things that are useless but for the fact that they help us enjoy each other's voices and companies. There's Noemi, who hugs me even if we only met a couple weeks ago at the start of school. There's Chastin, who introduces me to her friendly friends and takes me to her English teacher so we can write a vocabulary word on the board {amelioriation! my favorite!}. There's Ysabelle, who's put these jingly panda charms on my backpack and hasn't asked for them back. There's Carmen, who laughs with me and waves when we see each other in Band. There's Erica, who finds me in the hallway and delays going to class to talk to me. There's Caroline, who's invited everyone to her house for lunch on Fridays.
The weird thing about that day was that it was pretty much the first time anyone ever came up to me while skating. Normally I go to fast or something, because nobody catches up to me and says "Hey Mint!" and talks to me about, you know, life or something just as pointlessly interesting.
But this time, it seemed that every single person had a conversation with me, and I didn't even start half of them. I danced with Maddie and Melissa when songs we knew and loved came on the radio, and I giggled and made heart signs whenever a certain two friends skated together. I even talked to the guys, who weirdly decided to stop and skate with me.
It's nice being with friends and knowing you're appreciated. It's nice that even after a long conversation with plenty of awkward pauses, people will still come back for another round.
That's what I love about most of my friends from last year and the year before--they're always around. They'll come around again, even after fights or misunderstandings. They'll come around again, even though we're split down the almost-middle with schooling and we've all got new friends.
And then there was Wednesday, when I went to sit with some of my friends and the rest of their cool, popular group. I guess something in everyone wants to be part of a group like that, but when I went there I realized that they were already happy with each other. And you know what? I don't resent that. Sometimes people just don't belong. So I thanked them for their time and the next day, I wandered around with my friends, who were already waiting for me and wondering where I'd been the day before.
Then there's Amy, who finds me in the mornings and sticks around and is introduced to my friends, who immediately take her in. She and I have conversations about school, and she tells me how everyone in her ward had already forgotten her, but I know she's smiling because, like me, she's made peace with the fact that some people are like that. And ... we both didn't forget each other. And you might roll your eyes saying "How can you forget her? You two have known each other for five years. You've been going to the same school and everything!"
But think about it. Who did you know five years ago? Are you still talking to them, still friends with them?
I try my best. I just want to find my place. I just want to have people who are still coming around even when we're fifty just to sit on my porch and talk. I just want to have friends like Pepper who don't care what the distance is, what the difference is. I'm just here to find out which of the people here I'll still talk to in five years, I'll still come up to and say a little more than "Hi." I want to be that kind of friend to people.
So ... maybe I got off to a rough start, but a calm sea never made a sailor.
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