April 2, 2013
Friendship, Neighborhood and Home Vignettes
Jackson
It doesn’t seem like much, just your average friendship between 13 and 14 year olds. Usually kids my age are looked down upon by adults for acting so foolish and immature, but we don’t care. We like acting foolish. We like being immature and we like laughing at little things. Our friends are a little odd, some people like to say annoying, but we don’t care. We have fun.
Happiness is something that only real friends can give to you, it’s a lot harder when were fighting or not talking. We don’t really know what to do, we try to recreate the laughter and jokes with other people, thinking maybe she’ll find this one funny, but the jokes don’t work and the only things exchanged are awkward looks around the room.
We try to fit in, conform, but it doesn’t always work. Sometimes we end up looking like clowns, but we don’t care. We like the things we do, the things that make us laugh, the things that make us cry and the things that make us scream real loud and then soon after get yelled at and told to keep our voices down.
We aren’t the popular kids, were not the kids that get the best grades in school, were the kids that prefer staying in on a Friday night instead of sneaking out to the clubs. We like the way we are, the weird things about us. How we can’t really keep quiet while watching a film, how our plans don’t always go as planned, and how we like to make the popular kids feel awkward by chatting them weird things.
We fight a lot. We like to keep our fights verbal though, and don’t really want other people knowing about our conflicts. We like to make fun of each other and eat each others food and steal each others things, but I guess that just makes us…us. We don’t quiet know who we are yet, or what we like or we want to be, but we know we have each other and we know that’s all we need to know.
Bella Jo Boyko
April 2, 2013
Friendship, Neighborhood and Home Vignettes
Jackson
It was a happy family. Mom, Dad, Bailee, Chloë and I. Obviously, I was too young to know anything but my own name, and how to play go fish. When mom and dad would be working, and Bailee and Chloë were out too busy with their friends to watch me, my grandpa would come over to babysit, for hours and hours I could sit at the table and play him in go fish, I won, every round of course, and everything seemed to be O.K.
That’s because I didn’t know what would happen after I went to sleep, I didn’t know about the fights, and the tears and all the stress and negativity just sitting in my house waiting for some escape, but never finding one. Looking back at my life then, I was oblivious, to everything. I thought that everything was O.K and I never once had any worries.
Worries about my life, school, my family and friends. I never worried about late homework and chores. I was in my own world. A world where the kitchen was a restaurant and everything would be made for me, at my command. My bedroom was a chamber that only the most royal important people would by allowed into, and the living room, with the caddy cornered brown couch that I would hid behind, the living room was my fortress, my castle, my secret place, there I was a princess, a queen. No one would dare to enter.
Soon enough my perfect fantasy world came crashing down just like my perfect family and worry-free life. The fights that would only start long after I was asleep started happening earlier and earlier until they would happen right in front of me, in front of my face. I knew it; deep down inside I knew what was happening. I knew the fighting wasn’t a bad dream and that it was real. I knew that soon enough we wouldn’t live life as a happy family, for me it wasn’t a bad thing, I didn’t think much of it, I didn’t think it really mattered, dad said he’s be staying at grandmas for a little right? He didn’t say he was leaving, so he isn’t. Its not like mom and dad fought all the time, they only