Jessica

Jessica has already made one appearance in this blog but I find it only fair to give her her own posting. Jessica was the one person who single handedly saved my junior high experience.  So here I was this lost sad little new student with no friends and no clue how to make them due to the aforementioned Erin debacle. I somehow started to hang out at my lunch time with these one group pf girls, who were from one of the other elementary schools, hence not knowing anything about me or my former self. I remember that I kind of sat on the out skirts of this group at lunch and kind of followed them around between classes, but I never really thought that we were close. I just kind of went through the motions of it all and to tell you honestly I kind of went through the motions for everything back then.  There was this one girl though who I kind of liked in this group named Jessica but I never really made a ton of effort or anything because I mean look where that got me last time.

Anyways… Much to my surprise Jessica seemed to like me as well and soon we started to talk more and more and like start to become friends even. I remember this one day at lunch when she and I ate lunch together just the two of us in the locker bays. I have no clue what lead up to this moment but at some point one of us threw a mushy peach over the bays of lockers into another behind us. We both spent the whole lunch time in stitches and being goofy. For me that was the moment that I started to think I had found another person I could call a  real friend.  What I found out from Jessica some time later on that year, is that how that one on one lunch came about ,is because those other girls were going to push me out of the group and Jessica stood up for me and left instead. She basically choose hanging out with me instead of hanging out with them. That was something I always held in very high regards with Jessica, she was fiercely loyal.

Jessica became my best friend for the rest of junior high and part of high school. I look back on my life and I have so many memories of things we did together. Her mother was much stricter then mine and lucky for Jess her mom seemed to adore me, so Jess was always given a longer leash per say when hanging out with me.  This was perfect for us both because I frequently got to be a part of things or crowd sthat I never would have if not for her involvement. She made me have a fairly normal middle school experience. Over the summers we spent a ton of time together.  One summer her mom allowed me to come camping with their family, it was so fun and I got to drive this crazy van around with her and her sisters. We spend all this time listening to the Doors and having deep meaningful conversations about life.  I was Jessica’s person she would come to with her boy issues and unlike me and my lack of boy experience, Jessica had boy friends and relations that I could only experience through her.  Jessica was the person I was with when I met Jeff, my later to be boyfriend and the first guy who I ever got involved with closely.  She was also a witness to that relationship breaking down in one of the worst ways possible. I bet even still she remember that fateful night with the hammer right?

When I was in 9th grade I went to New Zealand as an exchange student and it was Jessica I missed the most. I was worried that she would just find a new set of friends when I was gone and that would be it. I had a mixed time over in New Zealand (another story) but the whole time I was gone Jessica sent me brightly colored letters detailing all that I was missing back home. When I returned it was a little weird for a while, because she had made some new friends who didn’t know about me and me them. But Jessica never let me ever get pushed to the outside of the group again.  She was always like that for me, she always made me feel like I was more worthy then I ever really felt I was, but having her see me that way made it seem more real to me.  Jessica never let me do anything I didn’t want too. She was like I said fiercely loyal. One time we had snuck out of her house to go meet some boys on  the golf course near her house, and they were all smoking pot and getting stoned. When it came time for them to pass to me, it was Jessica who told them I didn’t do it, and that was it. She never once pressured me to do anything with drugs and I have always respected her for that, because I know that’s not how a lot of teenagers treat their peers. She always just accepted me for the fact that I wasn‘t interested and that was it. This night like many, she told them all about how I sang, and in her stoned state always asked me to sing for her. I would to; she was one of the only people I felt really comfortable singing for.

So with all these amazing moments shared and such ,your probably wondering what happened? Well it was kind of uneventful what ended our friendship. There was no huge falling out or anything. She was smart and did well in school and studied and took advanced classes. I hated school ,never did homework and although I was smart ,I didn’t care about school at all. She eventually started taking running start classes at the community college and she found new people to hang out with. Me I stayed in our high school and suffered the misery of life there. We were always friendly but not nearly as close as we had been before. At some point she met a new guy and started to hang out with hi ma lot. I remember going to Dennys with them and drinking coffee and coloring pictures.  But for the first time I wasn’t a part of this relationship and that was ok with me.

 Eventually we graduated and I never looked back. She went on to college and I started to work full time and found a new group of people to be my friends and that was kind of just it. I eventually moved out of the area, and then spent 13 more years moving around. Jessica… Well I had no clue honestly what she ended up doing during those 13 years. I was sad that I didn’t stay close, but it was ok cause I guess that’s what people do, they grow apart.  It doesn’t have to be anything dramatic or bad.  The one thing I’ll say is that I always thought about her when I returned to the area ,but something always made me stop when I thought about looking her up. A few years back we had our high school reunion and I of course didn’t go (ya know cause high school was hell for me and all) but I saw on the list that she had RSVP’d. It once again made me start to think about her again. When I moved back to the area we somehow connected again.  I don’t really remember the details of finding each other but I know that Facebook was involved. I don’t remember who sent the first message or making the plan to meet up,  but we ended up taking a walk with my dogs and catching up. It was really really nice.  Since then we have gotten together only a few  other times but it’s because we are both super busy and not due to lack of wanting to.

This is one of those storied about a friendship that is happy for me… I do have a few of those to share.  I love knowing that she is back in my life, even if just as someone who pops up on my Facebook page with some sort of random comment or likes something I say. I like knowing that she is in my around even in just that small way.  And I hope that she feels the same about me. I am glad that she always invites me to things and sometime when my life isn’t insane, I’m going to show up at one of these events. i like the fact that now we can build an adult friendship based on more then just the every day seeing each other doing nothing. The conversations can be meaningful  even if they are small and few.  She might not have any idea about how much she saved me back in JR high (well maybe she does now) but I’m so glad that we were able to make our friendship worth more then just  something we both forever walked away from. I know that we will never go back to that best friend status but I’m at a point in my life where I can appreciate just  having loyal, kind, and good people in my life and  Jessica is all those and more. I hope that in the future we will be able to find some more time to hang out together.