In seventh grade I was a little awkward. I had not lost my baby fat yet and I was 5’0. I didn’t even make it through the first cut of my basketball tryouts that year. I had few friends because I was a somewhat nosey child. Eighth grade was a good year. It was the year I matured both physically and mentally. I lost around twenty pounds due to the fact that I grew three inches and I was on the basketball team. I gained many new friends that year to because I no longer told everyone’s secrets. Eighth grade was the year that all of the “cool” kids were friends. There were two types of cliques cool and uncool. That year I had made my transition from uncool to cool.
Every Friday night of the fall that year my friends and I would go to the high school football game. We would stand beside the concession stand the entire game and talk to the boys. I don’t think we ever watched one game that whole year. After the games we would go over to my best friend Anna’s house to eat CiCi’s pizza and watch scary movies all night. We would sleep until noon the next day, go home to do our weekend chores, and then all go back to Anna’s to stay Saturday night so we could get up and go to church the next morning. After church we would go eat, go back to Anna’s and listen to music until it was time for us to go back home that evening. Throughout each day of the week we spent time together by having our athletics period at the same time, eating lunch together, and hanging out after school.
I was on this thing called the dream team that year. The dream team was one of the sections of teachers that included a leadership class. Half of the kids on that team were kids that needed guidance and the other half were kids that could help guide the kids who needed guidance. We were the team that all of the other students were jealous of because at the end of each six weeks we got to go on a fieldtrip if we had behaved well. I was on a field trip to main event when a certain boy caught my eye. He was a punk looking kid with baggy jeans and skater shoes. I don’t see how I was ever attracted to someone like that, but apparently I was. He acted as if he didn’t like me the whole time we were on the field trip so that attracted me even more. Somehow he later got my number and we started talking. Soon enough we started going out and I fell head over heels, well at least that’s what I thought. I couldn’t tell you how many times we broke up over the next six months, but I can tell you that we ended up dating on and off until the first week of my freshman year. Yes, that was when I finally learned that the once a cheater always a cheater thing was true.
Its fun to look back on all of the memories from that special year because I love to see how much has changed and what has happened between now and then. Eighth grade will always be my favorite year of school because that was the year all of my friends were the closest and the year I that thought I knew what love was. I’ll never forget those days of silliness and immaturity and I will carry those memories with me through my life as I go on to bigger and better things.