/My Mental Ocean/

A Seriously Serious Entry (Seriously)

WARNING. THIS ENTRY WILL BE LONG AND RAW AND A LITTLE TOO DRAMATIC AND IT PROBABLY WON'T MAKE MUCH SENSE BUT THATS HOW I AM SO DEAL WITH IT.

     Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to be where I am today. I've been given opportunities that not a lot of people can get, and I couldn't be more thankful. But we all have our problems.

     I'm not used to change. Not really. I think that there's a limit, of times you encounter change, before you get used to it. Like, if I changed schools every month or moved to a new house every year, then maybe I'd be used to change.

     When I was in the fifth grade, I moved schools for the first time. I had been going to elementary school with the same thirty people my whole life. It made sense that we all move into the middle school together. (At that particular school, they took fifth grade). But, about halfway through the year, I knew I needed a change. The teachers were despicable and the older kids were horrid and I knew I could do better.

     Enter the Creek. Yeah, that's what I'll call it. I know allot of people who go to the Creek follow me on Wattpad, but idk if they read this tbh. Well, if they do, HI!!!!

     Anyways. I knew about the Creek from my best friend, Natalie, who went there. I don't remember much about the last half of fifth grade, but I remember it being fun and amazing and way better than my old school.

     Now, for middle school. I think everyone from the Creek, and possibly everyone else in the world, can agree with me that middle school was weird. It was really, really weird. Lots of phases went by, allot of drama happened (allot), and we suffered through a great deal of things. We fought, we laughed, we cried, we came out, we made many cringy Musical.lys, we wrote R-rated stories, we passed around secret group diaries, we fought for our rights, we watched WAY too much anime for our own good, we shipped teachers like the little sinners we are, we knew our OCs better than we knew ourselves, we stood up for each other, we hated each other, we loved each other, we dealt with horrible parents and emergency surgeries and crushes and our futures. We sang Grease songs while running down the hallways, we went ghost hunting, we watched horror movie trailers in the dark closet -- first one to turn on a light loses, we passed out while running the PACER, and we fangirled so. Many. Times. We crammed little adventures into each school day, making those seven hours of torture a little bit brighter.

     There isn't much time for adventure in high school. There are no Panic!-At-The-Disco-Fall-Out-Boy-and-My-Chemical-Romance-doused days, where you just slap on the eyeliner you found at the bottom of your drawer and call it a day. There's no parading the hallways after hours, vlogging on phone cameras even though no one else will ever see them. There's no laughing because the world is vast and we've only seen a smidge of it and we really don't know what we're doing because we're just kids.

     At least, that's how I've been feeling lately.

     I go to a Christian Private school, because the kids are more mature and the curriculum is just how I like it. And I do love it there, really. I love that I get to go. The classes are smaller, which is alright. Heck, there's thirty kids in my grade as opposed to the one hundred and eighty I'm used to.

     Because of the smaller student body, you get less types of people. The types of friends I had at the Creek don't exist here. I don't know, it's hard to explain. While I've made close friends at the Creek, I've felt like I had to compromise my opinions and true nature in order to not make a scene. Like my views on things like feminism and LGBTQIA+ rights. I can't talk openly about those kinds of things here. Which is an odd feeling.

     I've spent most of my freshman year stressing over homework, teachers, and how can I possibly study for all of these subjects in one night? Drama also doesn't exist here, which is nice. But when you've grown up in a place rich with drama, it's odd switching over to a place where nothing ever happens.

     While I have two friends who share the same interests with me and are super fun to be around, I can't help but feel out of place. Out of my element. Some days, I'll put my head down in class, and I can put myself back into the Creek, with my friends. I'm usually kind of sad when I lift my head a few moments later.

     Now, I never had a fitting in problem at the Creek. And, sure, it'll be a long time before my new friends really start getting used to me. There are things I want to tell my private school friends, but I can't, because they don't know me that well and haven't known me since before I started wearing mascara. I talk about the Creek allot, actually. Too much. I tell the classic stories and laugh at old inside jokes, and my new friends just look at me.

     Sometimes I think about the people at the Creek. They probably don't miss me as much as I miss them. I get worried that, when I try to reach out to them, they'll think I'm annoying or just holding on desperately to the past. And I am. I don't want to forget them, because they were just that important to me. They still are. When I see them in the grocery store, I don't want to just wave and smile. I want to scream with happiness and try to squeeze in months of events into a 5 minute conversation. I don't want to be strangers.

     And yes, texting exists, and I do still text some people from the Creek. But as before mentioned, I get worried that I annoy them. I don't know anymore.

     The days run together now. An endless cycle of classes and confusion. There aren't allot of things that separate the days, except clothes and lunches and tests. Who can blame me for missing how things were?

     And I know -- believe me, I know -- that we all must change and grow and let go of our pasts. We must become the people we're meant to become. Lately, I've been looking back, in hopes of getting answers to problems I'm currently having.

     I know exactly who I am, and at the same time, I have no idea. It's not fun when your #1 support system is seemingly so far away.

     Anyways, I've gone on long enough. This entry is too long and is probably unreadable. But I'm not about to look over it because I don't want to reread the embarrassing secrets I wrote about. so, I'm just gonna grit my teeth and hit publish.

Thanks for stickin' around ~ Riley