Dear Danyle

Dear Danyle,

Hi pal! Best friend speaking here! Listen, I have some very important things to tell you. And you hear these things all the time, but you are just one of those people that I could tell you these things over and over again because o never want you to forget how much you mean to me. Because you mean a lot or else I wouldn't be doing this. I don't do this for many people, you are actually one of the few I have ever done it for, so feel special. And I apologize now. This letter is for you and I talk about myself a whole lot, but It all comes together in the end so just deal with it. Just kidding just kidding. I do talk about myself a lot, what else is new. So anyways, let's start from the beginning. Like not even the beginning of our friendship, like the way way way beginning of who I used to be.

Elementary school. A sweet hell. All my elementary life I had my group of friends. Now they would very by who the new kid was or who liked who, but it was always the same group of kids that I hung out with. Life seemed great. I had two best friends that I would play with at recess and we'd hang out after school sometimes. They were my best friends. But as we got older, that's when things started to change. We stopped hanging out after school, they played with the new kid, they were in different classes, you know how it goes. And me being me just thought that everything was fine and dandy. That they will come back like they always do... but they didn't. And instead of them coming to me, I was going to them. Growing up, I was the protector. I was the one who made sure everyone felt welcome, or felt happy, or I told bad jokes so they would stop crying. I learned to be tough. I learned to be the one who put everyone before myself. And it got me in big trouble. Almost every time one of my friends was crying, or angry, or if something was wrong, I was always there. And I wouldn't let them go until they were back to their normal selves. But once I started needed these people, I didn't feel like I could go to them. I had lost respect for some of them. I mean hell, I went to school with these kids and they turned their backs on me. I was left in the dirt.
Junior high came around and I didn't know what a best friend was anymore. I had lost mine. And what little bond we had together was thinning and withering away. They were the popular kids and I was the outcast. They were the ones with good styles and I wore the same jeans from two years ago. They all had met someone new and I was clutching onto the only things I knew. They were all growing up and I was still a kid. And no jr student wants to hang around a kid.

But I still tried. I tried changing my style, I tried changing the things I'd talk about, I started talking to new people, I did whatever I could think of to please them, to make them notice me. But they stopped looking in my direction. They stopped waving when I'd pass by, they stopped smiling when I'd smile back, they stopped calling my name when they saw me, they stopped acknowledging me. And for what reason, was the biggest mystery to me. And I'm not saying that in the selfish way, but, I couldn't wrap my head why someone you knew for 7 years all of a sudden just, was done. So, I stopped texting them, I stopped writing letters in class, I stopped smiling, I stopped waving, I stopped everything. Except noticing them. I'd pass them and feel my heart break. I'd pass them and lower my head because I was trying not to cry. I'd pass them and it felt like I had lost everything, like I didn't deserve them, like there was something wrong with me.

At this time, I immediately blamed myself. I blamed myself for them not wanting to be my friend. Maybe it was my clothes, or my grades weren't good enough, or because I didn't wear makeup, or because I didn't play sports, or because I talked to much about the horses, or because I didn't stay up with the trends or the latest iPhone, or that my texts were annoying, or that I just wasn't good enough. I just wasn't good enough. And I met people and didn't feel accepted. I didn't feel at home with them like I did my old friends. I'd see the way they would look at these new "friends" or hear the way they would talk about them. And it didn't make me feel good. These were the new people I was surrounding myself with. The people I would go to when I had something to say, but I never felt like they listened, like they truly listened. So I kept to myself and started shutting down.