I’ve never really realized how friendless I was when I was a kid. I had my sister and my two cousins, Ben and Bethany. But… from the ages of five to twelve, I can not think of any other child that I can say was a actual friend and not just an aquantiance. Outside of my sister and cousins, I was all alone.
I was very different than all the kids from our homeschool group. They were odd, they watched movies I wasn’t allowed to see, they got to do things and play with things that I didn’t even know existed. They had their own friends. Instead of making new friends, I simply bonded stronger with Kayla and Bethany….
I had no real friends at the church we attended. Because our parents kept us out of Sunday School, the kids looked at us as ‘weird’ and ‘different’ and it was just really uncomfortable, now that I think about it. I was better aquinted with unmarried adults–no, not the teenagers or young people. The adults. We attended that church for probably six years. And I never really got a real friend. Sure, I had several ‘friends’ but the relationships would have been better called ‘acquaintances’.
Even at our last church we attended, we went several years keeping to ourselves. I know why I kept to myself. I was afraid of being hurt. Again. I was afraid of liking people just a little bit but not being liked back. Of being seen as ‘different’. Again. So for the longest time, I kept to myself. I made one good friend, Ashley, whom I still keep in contact with. But for the longest time…. I still felt friendless.
However, over the last year, things have changed for the better.
Today I was sitting at my desk thinking about all the girls I’d gotten to know through my blog and how nice they all were; I was thinking about Dylan and Daryck, thinking about all the kids I was looking forward to seeing at the Christmas Party on Friday and . . . I realized something. It’s different now.
I now have kids whom I can call real friends. Not because I like them, but they actually like me back. They want to be with me. They want to be my friend too. It’s no longer one-sided. I’m no longer friendless…I have friends, and I am someone else’s friend. I have friends who run to hug me as I walk through the door, who want to come sit beside me. They don’t look at me like I’m different or strange. They treat me like I exist.
They are my friends and it’s all real.
I’m not alone anymore.
~Jamie
