Blogging Through The Years: Sixth Grade

I am blogging through all of my years in school–from Kindergarten through College.  If you want to participate, write a post of your own! Previously: Kindergarten, First Grade, Second Grade, Third Grade, Fourth Grade, Fifth Grade.

Sixth grade was a major turning point in my life.  I’d made the leap from elementary school to middle school.  I thought going to seven classes a day was infinitely more interesting and exciting than sitting in the same one for all six hours of the day.

I would curl my bangs and gel my hair back into a pony tail that I would top every day with a bow that matched my outfit.

My elementary school had been very safe and cozy.  I had the same friends from first grade through fifth.  Middle school was so different.  I didn’t know everyone, my bff Elyse was going to a different school, I had to ride the bus with older kids, and I didn’t have any classes with any of my other friends.   After my first day of school, I was so exhausted that I came home and just fell asleep.  I quickly adapted, though.  I made new friends and began feeling distant from my old friends.  We were a fragmented group now.

I was happy with my new friends, though they weren’t quite as sweet or loyal as the group I’d once belonged to.  They were just on the fringe of the cool kids, which put me on the fringe of the fringe.  There were a lot more games than I was used to.  I remember this one girl Elizabeth wanting so badly to be best friends with this other girl Chrystal, but Chrystal would so often choose her friend Cynthia over Elizabeth.  I felt bad for Elizabeth, but I was always happy when it was me Chrystal wanted to work with in class.  I was spared a lot of hurt feelings in that tangled mess, because I had my own new bff Rachel.  Rachel had really nice hair and she always wore these cool Unionbay t-shirts.

The kids from my elementary school were outnumbered by kids from one of the other schools in the area.  At the other school, they’d had dances and there had been many couples.  Rachel, it seemed, had dated nearly everyone in her class.  Their influence seemed almost corrupting to the kids from my school, but we quickly assimilated.

I don’t remember how exactly it went down.  Rachel and I were becoming good friends.  I even went to her birthday party.  But, then, I think she started dating someone at our school and she pretty much ditched me for him.  She was no longer on the fringes–she was now part of the cool group.  To be fair to Rachel, I don’t think the ditching was all that dramatic and she came to me not too long later and apologized.  But, in my life to that point, I’d only ever had the most loyal of friends who would never do anything like that.  I said it was fine, but I didn’t really forgive her.  I don’t know if I was trying to teach her a lesson or protect myself, but I distanced myself from her.

The result was that I didn’t really have any friends.  When I turned my back on Rachel, I turned my back on all of them.  There was almost nothing left of my group of friends from elementary school.  I’d really never had to work to make friends and the truth was that I didn’t really know how.  I started talking to a few kids who sat in the front of the classroom.  They were very good students and I wasn’t.  I was just coasting along, doing the work but not really trying.  I couldn’t be part of this new group, which really was not a group, if I wasn’t working hard too.  So, I did.  I mean, I had the time since I didn’t have many friends.

I was hooked on being a good student immediately.  I’d always flirted with it before, sometimes doing well, but never keeping it up.  I quickly formed a new identity for myself as one of the smart kids.  Of course, we were only second string to the real smart kids who were in the advanced classes.  I’d been friends with some of them during my brief stint as a cool kids myself.  Most of them I thought were pretty weird.  Like this girl named Lisa who sat next to me in band.  She has since become a great deal cooler.

In general, I think that real life is very little like fiction where there are clear forks in the road and sharp lines to define everything.  But, sixth grade was a major fork to me and I recognized it only a few years later.  There was no reason I couldn’t be both, but I had my choice of hanging with the cool kids or becoming a good student, and I made my choice, however unconscious it was.  It made the next two years of middle school rough, but it’s very easy for me to see that if I hadn’t made that choice then, then I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.  And I love what I’m doing now.

Just because I need to fit this embarrassing story into this blog somehow:  Throughout middle school, all the girls had a crush on this one boy.  He was actually kind of a dork in sixth grade and he had a speech impediment, but he was cute and he was in my class.  I wasn’t quite head over heels for him like some of the other girls, but he would sometimes tease me and I always wanted to impress him.  Near the end of sixth grade when I’d officially made my move to being a dork, someone came into our class to give a presentation or something and she brought candy.  I have a hard time eating in the morning and I guess I ate my candy too quickly.  Before I really had a chance to think about it, I was running the short distance from my desk, past the cute boy’s desk, to the garbage can where I threw up right in front of him.