Floating Through Time and Groups

As I view the posts on a couple of friends' blogs, I am starting to feel rather dejected on my social state in life. All of my friends (maybe excluding you, Megs? I'm not sure since neither of us really hang out with each other in groups) have groups that they run in, whether those friends come from work, college, or old high school buddies. The closest thing I've ever had to a group of friends was Derek Jackson and Cody Wolverton (I exclude the Nik and Kestin group because I was dating Nik, making it a different relationship, and Kestin was my friend outside of that), which really wasn't very groupish either. Never in my life have I ever really fit in in any sort of group. At times I have I've merely been let in to observe, but not be part of, the group.

In high school Sarah James tried to fit me into the group of friends that consisted of Sam Speer, Andrew Schull, Jill Bowers, Chad Nielsen, Jenna Jay, and several others that I'm not going to name, because most of them just drifted in and out of the group. Being different when it came to how I was raised (my parents weren't active when I was little, and then when they became active I was taught that it was okay to associate with those not of our religion), which is probably why Sarah became friends with me at all (tangent--did you realize that if you take the r out of friends it spells fiends? Coincidence or not, since sometimes friends can be fiends), I wasn't very well accepted into the group, being nicknamed the Devil's Child and generally being treated strangely/savagely. Andrew, who was Sarah's boyf at the time, absolutely hated me (likes me now, for the record), and the guys in the group that I would have considered dating didn't like me either.

Really, my only real friend in the group besides Sarah was Chad. He was really quiet and listened to everything I had to say, rarely commenting, but I knew he was listening, because he laughed a lot. I enjoyed making him laugh, which is strange, because I generally don't like people to laugh at me. While I harbored some sort of symbiotic relationship with the group as a whole (most likely parasitic), I really enjoyed talking to Chad (we had a class together my junior year, which was awesome). Soon, however, because the feeling of being disliked set in strong, I decided that I would just go home to eat lunch, as I had just gotten my driver's license. Occasionally old friends came with me, but for the most part I went home alone to eat. I felt like Cady from the show Mean Girls, who doesn't fit in anywhere until accepted in by the plastics, which wasn't happening to me, so I was pretty much at a loss.

Soon high school was over, because I graduated a year early, and when I went to college things weren't much different. Trying to be outgoing just wasn't producing very many nice results. My swedish class was a tight knit group, and we all got along really well, and I tutored my friend Carin, who was really grateful for the help, but for the most part I was just alone all the time on campus.

Truly, I miss Wes Kirkham. When all my friends went on missions, he was there to take the place of those people, and he filled more of that place than I think even I realized until after he left on his mission to Croatia. He was the one that kept me going in classes I thought I was just going to drop out of or fail; he was the one who told me fascinating stories, whether about real life or about the book he was preparing to write, and it was amazing. I felt like I could be myself around him, and I really enjoyed it. It didn't matter that there wasn't a group. I screwed it all up by getting married. Now that I'm not married, I'm writing to him, but it isn't quite the same, because I neglected that relationship so much.

So, I guess the real problem is that I see what Megan Nield, Sarah, Mike, and Ashley Thayne have, want it, get it, and screw it all up. Such is life, I guess. My lot in it is to use people to get further in it and screw up any relationships I may have with people. The only people that stay constant are Megan and Sarah, for which I am truly grateful.