Just some thoughts

All I have left to do tonight is make my history notes prettier, and I feel like writing. It's bulletted by topic, and I think it progresses from superficial anecdote to soul-searching because that's just the way my mood went. I feel like I start to sound like Carrie Bradshaw at the end. Sorry about the length. ^_^

**New editor-in-chief of our newspaper decided yesterday we need to do "get to know you" activities even though everyone on the staff either went to camp or was in the class last year. I thought the point of journalism camp was so we wouldn't have to stand outside in a swarm of gnats in 98% humidity on the first day of school playing "never have I ever" to get to know each other. But it's his call.

**A girl I was friends with in first grade died the other day. I believe she was hit by a car. It's so scary when you see the name of someone you haven't thought about in years, and it's in the obituaries.

**I went back to the senior center to help out after school today. I miss it there. I'd rather be there than in school. I miss all the fun afternoon activites they do. I like helping people paint during arts and crafts. I was afraid that going back, some of the people with advanced dementia wouldn't remember me. I'm afraid that if I stop going often, someone might die or their disease will progress so much that I can't talk to them anymore.

I think this is just a more specific example of the fear everyone has, that time will get away from them, they will be forgotten, and people they love will disappear.

**Drawing on that, I've always realized that many of the friends I have today will, in 10 years, be distant memories. Maybe I'll keep in touch with a few, maybe one really will be my friend forever, but relationships I have now won't be the same after high school is over. I've lost so many friends over the years. Everyone does, and they're always friends they never wanted to lose.

My friend has a completely different outlook on high school friendships than I do. She believes that "climbing the social ladder" is the most fun part of high school. She hangs out with people she knows will make her popular, and she wants to meet as many people as she can before she graduates.

I don't believe in that. I have two close friends at school. Two. That's it. One I've known since the first day of high school. The other I just met in January of last year. I feel like I've known them forever, and that's dangerous because I know we're going to grow apart some day. But if you live high school looking at friends superficially, as names you will barely remember by the end of college...how do you know who to trust?

She's at a different school in a whole different world. We see things differently and don't always understand each other. I can't think in terms of real-life social networking, friends as connections to more friends. I think that even though good friends might leave, the memories of them never will. Maybe she's just being realistic and knows friendships don't last, so might as well be loved superficially by many than profoundly by a few. Maybe, in a way, that's better than tricking yourself into believing in the idealistic idea of BFF.

Love,
Juliana