When I was little, people used to ask me who my favorite superhero was. I'd tell them either Captain America or Tony Stark, because they were fearless and strong and smart and everything I hoped to be when I grew up.
I remember the day when the moving van showed up.
It wasn't for me though, and it didn't come to my house. I should probably make that clear.
No, this moving van showed up in the driveway of the house next door, all big and imposing and frankly magical to me. Having lived in one house all my life, the concept of moving seemed strange and full of the sort of grandeur usually associated with long-lost-princesses and hidden passageways. But that's not why this particular day has stuck with me, despite all the time that has passed since.
Well, maybe that's a little bit of the reason why.
Beyond the magic moving truck, however, the thing I recall most vividly actually came from the minivan that followed it.
I remember the automatic doors slowly whooshing open, and the sudden explosion of movement that erupted from within the unassuming belly of the silver-monster-that-was-also-a-minivan.
I should probably clarify, the explosion of movement really wasn't nearly all that dramatic. I'm simply using hyperbole for your sake, in an attempt to make you understand the unstoppable force of nature that was seemingly born from the aforementioned minivan-that-was-not-actually-a-monster.
The unstoppable force of nature was Alisa Lee, of course.
When I was a little bit older, people would ask me who my role model was. I would usually say Hermione Granger, because she was smart and brave and polite and didn't let anyone tell her no. Plus, like any other sensible nine-, ten-, or whatever-year-old, I really wanted a Hogwarts letter.
A short while after Alisa Lee arrived, spilling stale McDonald's French fries and an impressive amount of matchbox cars from her lap as she emerged from the silver minivan, I had my first day of school.
Actual school, at least. Kindergarten and preschool do not count, in this case.
By some stroke of luck, Alisa Lee and I were placed into the same classroom.
Having spent some time together already (as parents seem fond of pushing their children together in order to assure a friendship blossoms to then foster their own adult friendships), we entered the classroom together, wearing matching ladybug backpacks.
As an aside, the matching ladybug backpacks were a coincidence, but the detail seems important anyway, because it represents how in sync we were even early on. Or at least it's a testament to what little selection our local Target offered in backpacks that didn't feature Hannah Montana or some cartoon character on them.
Upon entering that classroom, Alisa Lee and I quickly realized that our peers very obviously suffered from attending kindergarten at the same school they were currently attending first grade in (having attended a daycare/kindergarten myself, and Alisa Lee being from out-of-state), as there were at least five kids either with crayons up their nose or that were in the process of accomplishing just such.
Without much (or any) deliberation, Alisa Lee turned to me and declared us best friends. Having never thought otherwise, I agreed, and despite having already known and become acquainted with her, I count the first day of school as the first day of my friendship with Alisa Lee.
If people didn't ask me who my role model was, they usually asked me something along the lines of: "What is your favorite book/movie/television show?" In the event the question pertained to movies, I usually answered with "the Martian, because it is a movie about smart people making smart decisions to save Mark Watney as he too persists in the face of isolation and oblivion. Also, they go to space, and I really want to be an astronaut."
Tragically, that last part wasn't possible, because NASA refuses to shoot people with asthma up in one of their rockets.
While we may have become best friends at the very beginning of first grade, sixth grade was the first time that friendship ever faced any sort of difficulty.
That was the year I decided I wanted to be more than what I was. I wanted to be more than the chubby girl with good grades and a poor grip on reality. I wanted to become a force of nature comparable to the likes of Alisa Lee.
The chubbiness could be blamed on a couple of things.
The first was that one of the medicines I took for my asthma apparently dramatically increased weight gain, probably by slowing down my digestive system or something. I'm still not really sure, truth be told, all I know is that I stopped taking it after the doctor said I was borderline obese.
The second reason was that I loved to eat. Excessively. Arguably, so did Alisa Lee, but she had the metabolism of a three-hundred-pound weightlifter, and literally never gained a pound.
The good grades thing probably goes without explanation. I didn't feel the need to change that, though I was a terrible procrastinator. That wouldn't change much.
The loose grip on reality was all me, and that fact is something I detest and deny to this day.
The truth is that I was naïve and had no proper sense of humor, along with a few other issues, but those wouldn't be discovered for a while later.
Entering the doors of my middle school was when I declared the beginning of my official self-reinvention. I excitedly discussed it with Alisa Lee at lunch, who instantly agreed to help me.
What I didn't understand was that our interpretations of my makeover, both physically and metaphorically speaking, were somewhat drastically different.
While I will spare you the details (primarily because I have severely suppressed the majority of my middle school memories), let it be known that pseudo-emo is not a good way to try and become more than what you were. Instead of realizing I was already a force of nature waiting to be unleashed all my own, I morphed into a shit-show complete with bad eyeliner and worse poetry.
