Scars of Time

Have you ever been utterly crushed as a child?

And I don't mean breezing through non-rated beginner in a chess and then getting your ass handed to you once you become novice in chess. Even though that has happened to me countlessly. Well not really. More like once I went from novice to reserve. And that's why i quit chess, because it's too competitive for me. Well that's a little white lie as well. I also don't like it because I'm okay but not better than a lot of other people, and I lack the resources that most of my friends had to become better at chess. Meaning? A legacy of chess masters in your family, or money to pay for lessons. But if i really had a choice, I'd choose music lessons. Seriously, music > chess. I wish I knew how to play the piano. Or violin. Or guitar, but my guitar is just sitting there. Maybe it's really the disappearance of lethargy and sloth that I wish.

I just went on a long tangent, but let me get back to the point. When I was younger, I changed schools three times. Once because I moved, second because I got into the Delta Program (it's like an accelerated youth curriculum program - I don't really know what was accelerated, I'm not that smart.) And I made friends - and lost them. By the time I was in third grade and my third school, I just wasn't able to get close to anyone. Then a surge of incoming fourth graders came next year, and there was the group I wanted to be part of. All girls, all girly. Yes, I was at the age when boys were icky. Actually not really, I had started reading fics by then. But by social convention, I was supposed to pretend I thought boys were icky, so I went to the crowd that icked at the boys. And the group was all Chinese too, so i followed the racial convention as well.

But the point is that I didn't really fit in. i was annoying, aggressive, and simply an outsider though I was in the class longer. Virginia I remember...she was the one I disliked because she was best friends with Lisa, the girl I wanted to be good friends with. But it was also because our personalities clashed. And she was pretty. And skinny. The summer between third and fourth grade I had learned how to cook and my body proportions swelled like a pumpkin. Well not really, but I had gotten fat.

Anyways, despite this group of friends, I also hung out with the tomboy and her boy clique at times, as well as MS and AS next door because of chess.

And when we graduated, we lost most contact. Even then I didn't feel that we were good friends.

I dreaded middle school, but it was there that I had the best times of my life. I found a good group of friends, especially MC even though JT was my best friend. But once we graduated, once again our bonds were disappearing.

And now it's junior year. Once we graduate, we'll go to different colleges in probably different states, no longer schools of just different boroughs. So should I even bother trying mend bridges, fortify bonds and keep up with socializing when it's all going to disappear once June of next year arrives?