Dear Jo

Dear Jo (Part 1)

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                You’re probably wanting a backstory right? About my childhood or maybe about last winter. Or maybe you want to know about my personality? Hah yeah right. I’m not describing how I look either. There are reasons for that one. I know this sounds stupid because you’re a book and all, but I have to make sure I trust you before I write anything deep or personal in here. I just have to make sure that I’ll make this a commitment. That I won’t stop writing or that this won’t be read by anyone. I feel absolutely ridiculous that I’m practically talking to no one too, so I’m going to pretend that I’m talking to someone. That’s right, I’m naming you. I’m just deciding whether you should be a boy or girl. I guess a girl would be more relatable. How about Jo? That seems simple enough. Alright, it’s official. Your name is Jo.

                I guess I should tell you something since you are a diary after all, so I’m just going to tell you some pretty basic things about my life; unimportant things. Let’s see. I live in Oklahoma. We’ve moved around a few times, but never too far, and we never left the state. I like it I guess. I mean I don’t really know much place else. I’ve visited other states, but only for a short while. I visited Washington a few years ago and decided that I wanted to live there, so that’s where I’ve decided to go for college. It’s so beautiful there. So green and lush compared to the yellow dryness here. It’ll be good for a fresh start too. The rest of my life starts when I get there. I can’t wait for that. I’ll be whoever I want to be and do whatever I want and it’ll be perf-  great. Probably shouldn’t use the word perfect. That’s way too high of an expectation.

                I went to Prairie View High for the last three years of high school and made some nice friends there. The first friend I made at Prairie View was Audrey. We had advanced English together and she sat a few seats a way. At first, all she did was smile at me when I looked at her. When I got on the bus after school however, she was the first one to invite me to sit down. That’s where the friendship started. Countless bus rides and classes later, I found out that she’s in every advanced class there is while I was only in English. She told me about how she likes country music the most, and about how her favorite sport is football, and that she started going to church every Sunday and Wednesday after her father died last year. It didn’t take me long to realize that Audrey was actually really quiet. She only seemed to be involved in a lot, but she was actually very reserved. I soon realized that the only reason she and I had become friends was because of how nice she is to everyone. She wanted to make sure I had a friend by my first day. She got pushed over and used a lot, and it was kind of obvious. After I got to know her well, I think she caught on and we started to talk less and less. I always felt bad. She pushed her closest friends away so she could be alone, and it worked. We still talk on occasion, maybe once every month or two, but that’s it. She recently told me that she has plans to join the army at the end of the summer and protect her country. I can’t imagine her doing anything else.

                Audrey was the one that introduced me to Eli, who was my second friend at Prairie View. They were best friends when I met them. Eli was outgoing and happy and seemed to be in his own world. He lived with pot smoking parents, and he shared a room with his girlfriend and her son. He always seemed to carry drama with him, and often got into fights with his friends, except for Audrey. They were complete opposites, and I think that’s why they were so close. They were so intrigued by the others life, so wrapped up in what they wish they could’ve been. They were good for each other; they balanced the other out. Then last fall came around, and things were just different. Eli came back to school a bit more controlling, and Audrey came back a lot more annoyed. It only took a few weeks for her to tell Eli off and insult him and they weren’t friends anymore. They didn’t even really fight or argue, they just stopped. Stopped talking, stopped laughing and joking, just stopped. I’d catch them every once in a while hanging out with different friends in the hallway or at lunch, but they never laughed as loud as they did with each other. Eli and I didn’t talk much after that. We’d only really hung out together when Audrey was around anyway. I hear about Eli every now and then. Last I heard was that he was getting a full time job and joining community college to help raise his girlfriend’s kid. They’re trying to get custody of him.