relationships.

"Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with one another. Sometimes we make friends with those we collide with; sometimes we become mortal enemies. Sometimes we even forget the person we collided with, and they become just a hazy memory. But every once in a while, you meet someone who stays in your memory, by your side, and with you for the rest of your life. They become a part of you, and you know that you'll never, ever forget them. There are many people that are very near and dear to me in this way; so much so that I would be lost without them."

once upon a time, i wrote this for a paper for a language arts class. in it i was to describe my connection, or relationship, with two people i considered to be near and dear to me.

relationship - a state of connectedness between people.

for as long as i can remember, i've always had my friends. i've always had my family. i've always had people i could count on. but throughout the years, my relationships with those friends and those family members have shifted. changed. morphed. some have even disappeared. this is my story about those relationships and why they matter...and why they don't.

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once upon a time, my family looked like this.


then it was broken down into this.


after the divorce, i grew closer than ever to my dad. i can't even describe how our relationship changed. we faced a harder road than anyone could ever know, but we faced it together. because of that, our relationship is strong. sturdy. dependable. my mom, however, was a different story. we stopped seeing each other on a regular basis, and she didn't call as often as she should. she stopped caring, so i stopped telling her about my everyday life, and whenever she visited i was distant and nonresponsive. before, i had been able to tell her anything. now, that was all gone.

a relationship. gone.

then it all changed again. my family grew and expanded. now, it was this.


three new members.
three new additions.
three new relationships.

the strongest new relationship i gained out of those three was from my step-mom, shari. she stepped in and has literally taken the place of my mom. we fight, we laugh, we fight some more, we cry, and fight again on a daily basis. it's our relationship. and i wouldn't have it any other way. she helps me make sense of the world and can make me laugh without even trying. and although sometimes she makes me madder than can be, it doesn't matter. because that's what we do. it's our relationship.



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once upon a time, i met a girl while playing the board game sorry at after-school care. we instantly befriended each other and even went to watch arthur together. i met another girl on the monkey bars, and we bonded over the red callulus on our hands. in class, there were two other girls i also got along pretty well with. i declared these four my best friends and therefore invited them to my sure-to-a-hit birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's. we were in kindergarten.


six years later, only one of them was still to be one of my best friends. two of the girls moved; one to south dakota, which at age eight, might as well have been as far away as Mars; the other to clarksville, only to move back the next year. she moved back and forth, though, to different local cities until her mom finally settled in LaPorte City a few years ago. we tried to remain friends when she went to WSR - but it was hard, knowing she was to move again the next year. the final girl grew up faster than all of us and completely changed, changing everything from her hair to her values. we have barely spoken since third-ish grade; we who were best friends at age five.

see what i mean about relationships?

they change.
people change.
times change.
and sometimes, you just can't stop it.

so in sixth grade, this was my new "clique." - my new best friends.


i don't really know how we got thrown together and labeled as "best friends" - maybe it just happened. we didn't really mesh well together, though; two people were always fighting and requiring the other two to take sides. eventually, the fighting broke us apart at the end of our middle school years, sending us our separate ways. two of the girls stayed together and are still best friends to this day. the other girl and i went our own paths, but we still talk and i consider her to be a friend, as i think she does me as well. all of us are aquaintances now, and i sometimes wonder if anyone else remembers us being best friends. i wonder if anyone misses it.

so, moral of this story: relationships, especially those involving middle school girls, are complicated.

onto junior high, and a new set of relationships - my best ones yet. meet the nerd posse.


in this group of girls, i found the best friends i could ever ask for. we didn't just mesh well together; it was like we were part of each other. we were crazy, goofy, loud, stupid in some cases...but we were best friends. we called ourselves the nerd posse. i could tell everything and anything to these girls, so i did. we all did. our friendship relationship was the strongest one i'd ever had - for a while, at least.

over the next few months, the nerd posse would shorten by two girls. our priorities changed, they changed, we all changed...so things changed.

two relationships. gone.

but as we went on towards high school, things changed for the better. new relationships formed - friend-wise, family-wise, boy-wise.

some existing relationships grew stronger than i'd ever imagined,

some became better than i could have ever dreamed,

some came out of nowhere, but i'm so grateful they did,

and some are still starting out.

so here we are. high school. freshmen year. my best friends now?



i'm proud to say that my relationships with my junior high friends have continued on into high school, as well as brought in some new ones.

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but here's the thing about relationships - they're always changing. one moment, you're best friends, screaming and laughing; the next, you could madder than hell at each other over the stupidest little thing. romantic relationships aren't exempt from such change, and neither are family ones. every day, i look at the people around me and think about our relationship. it doesn't matter if we're friends, family, or lovers; i still treasure our relationship the same. and when i think about our relationship, i think about the last time we laughed together, or the last time we hugged. the last time we cried, or the last time we yelled at one another. that is what our relationship is made of.

so what's the point of all this? me telling you about my relationships in my life? why does it matter?

i guess i just want you to remember that relationships will always be changing. sometimes you can't stop them, and sometimes you can. i just want to know that your relationship with me has changed me. i wouldn't be the same person i am now without you, and i don't know whether to thank you or hate you for that. i guess it all just depends on our relationship.

"As we travel through our lives, we will collide with a lot of people. They may end up being our bosses, co-workers, friends, enemies, or even complete and utter strangers; and the majority of them will play large roles in our lives. But the role they play won't be as large nor as significant as the people, who, when you collide with them, stay with you. These are the people you will remember, the people that helped shape you as a person, the people who were there when no one else was. I have been blessed to have many people like this in my life; people so near and dear to me that I would be lost without them."