My old life at New Life

As a continuation of the previous post on friendship, New Life invokes a wide aray of feelings and emotions. I probably learned more at that school than I've ever learned anywhere else in my life. I attended that school from 5th Grade until 8th grade, 4 years. I learned the Bible, I learned about friends, I learned about hurts and back-stabbing from both adults and classmates, I learned sports, and I learned that my mom will always be my number one fan, I learned that Math and History would always be a struggle.
I met some of my favorite people at New Life. Sharon and Kelly were awesome friends. The 3 of us had the common interest of horses and boys, specifically our brother's friends. Sharon and I played basketball together and were "ball girls" for the soccer team. We stayed friends even after I moved...up until the point that we ran out of things to talk about...now I see her on MySpace and we truly are 2 different people. I still think about her with the biggest smile. I remember singing Ace of Base and being too chicken to play "bloody mary" at midnight on her birthday.There are 3 other people that I kept in touch with for a short period of time after moving-Kathy, Alyson, and Valerie. Kathy hurt my feelings, and we stopped talking. Alyson moved to New York and we used to talk on the phone...don't even know what happened there. She is on my Facebook and seems good. Valerie used to write me letters and send me cards and I wish I could just find one of them so I could send her a letter...I don't think I ever wrote her back and I feel awful. I just remembered her last name though, so now I'll have to search her on Facebook.I kept in touch with Noah for awhile too, until he sent me a really mean email about sending forwards and basically made me feel really stupid. That still blows me away that someone would feel okay with making someone feel that stupid. My face still burns with embarassment when I remember receiving that email...I remember both Julie's, Lainey, Robby, Luke, Daniel, Melanie, Marcus, Matt, etc. There were about 5 or 6 people that treated me...badly to say the least. It's not worth listing their names, because I'm over it. Actually, I've talked to 3 of them since then, and we are all adults now. I'm still "fat" and I still have a bit of a different laugh...but they are adults now and have learned to appreciate someone for qualities other than those of which they used to make fun of me for. It's funny because I emailed one of the Julie's on MySpace and she replied, "Oh yea! I remember you! I used to come to your house and play after school!" And it was at that point that I realized that sometimes you remember people a lot differently than they remember you...She came to my house once for my birthday, and it was on a Saturday.
Sometimes I wish things had been different back then. I wish that my teachers had been better and more supportive and that kids weren't so cruel. I wish my friendships had lasted and that we could have realized then what we all know is important now. But things weren't different, and I learned a lot from the experience. Some of those realizations have taken years and have taken the help of new friends to truly understand, but none the less have shaped who I am as a person today.
New Life taught me what friendship is and isn't. And New Life taught me to let go of the image that others created of me, and to create my own. New Life also taught me that everyone struggles with their own demons and that instead of contributing to those struggles I need to encourage and uplift lest I be to someone what those few people were to me.