I haven't had a lot of experience with tracks in my life. Running is fine...but I prefer other forms of exercise. Last night I decided to run. I'm not exactly sure why, I had worked out earlier in the day, I had already showered, and it was about 9:30 pm. Instead of hittin up Gold's Gym, I decided to take a stroll down memory lane (literally) and I headed up to Mueller Park Jr. High. Oh junior high...some people say the middle school years were the worst of their life. Not me! Though they are bittersweet memories now, I had so much fun that I actually missed those carefree days when your biggest fear was that someone would wear the same shirt to school as you. As I was running my mind began to wander...it circled memories of the field I was skirting, the blood and sweat I ground into the pavement I was on, and the people I held close through the thick and thin of it all. How fitting is it that during my most sentimental moment the song "Remember the Name" came on? I couldn't help it. I laughed to myself. As much as I sometimes wish I could push those memories out of my mind and into oblivion, they are here to stay. And for the first time, I'm okay with that. I realized that people come into our lives for a reason. They come, they leave their mark, and then they go. Memories of planning surprise birthday parties, having fights with giant stuffed fish, getting make overs at the Clinique make up counter and then going ice skating are just that. Memories. Sometimes the people we find ourselves closest with aren't meant to stay. They help you to learn and to grow and just like that, they are gone. Off to meet new people and make new friends, leaving you in the dust confused and disheartened. You'll learn to pick yourself up though. You always do.
I did track my 9th grade year. Want to know why? One very simple reason. It got me out of school, what more could you want?! I was a officer so I was used to getting out of class early, but track was the only exception. For some bizarre reason, they made us go to wrestling meets? matches? but not track. In order to complete my junior high experience, ditching as much school as possible was a must, so track it was. It helped that my best friend did track. She actually liked it though! Most days the track team would meet in the locker room and then walk down to the high school to practice. We would make it all the way to Emerald Hills Drive and then another one of our friend's mom would pick us all up. I don't know how it happened, but we saved ourselves a mile walk just about every day. I still remember the van we rode in; the seats turned around so we could all face each other. By the time the rest of the runners got down the the track we were almost done running our 2 miles. It's not like we would actually run though. At least I wouldn't...I was iPodless and there were hot high schoolers to look at. Why sacrifice my looks for a sport I couldn't care less about? The moment that my friend was done running, we would leave-her mom picked us up. One day while we were waiting we found a wire in the shape of a heart. We called it the "Love Wire"; very original, I know. I'm not exactly sure what we planned to do with it...maybe she was going to hang it on her bulletin board or something. We had a whole stash of random junk to keep track of. One day while I was walking to her house I found a rock that looked like a toe. A HUMAN toe. It was so freaky that that was the first thing I told her about when I walked in the door. You didn't knock. You walked in, took of your shoes, and went down stairs. She thought it sounded cool so we walked halfway back to my house to find the rock. And find it we did. We took it back to her house and painted the indentation of the "toe-nail" red and made up this whole story about how it belonged to a fossilized cave woman. Morbid? Maybe, but it is one of the funniest memories I have of our friendship. We had that rock for ages...I was thinking, although our friendship means nothing now, does the memory? Does she still have the rock? I might not never know.
Some of you know the story, some of you don't. I consider myself in the "don't" category. I don't know how two people can go from being connected at the hip, to being completely alien to each other in a matter of days. I don't know what happened to make things this way, and I don't know that I even want to know. I spent so long placing blame-it was her fault, she stopped answering the phone, she's the one who turned friends against me, it was her mouth that didn't open up to defend me. There were rumors flying about me. Did she start them? I didn't care. I don't care. What I did care about is that she did nothing to put them out. She knew me better than almost anyone, she knew I wouldn't do those things...I spent so long placing blame that's all I know. I tried other things first. Believe me, I tried. A smile and a wave were met with silent stares as we pass each other in the grocery store. Saying "Hi" as we stand in line for Spanky's is met with a backward glance and a smile? More like a grimace. After a while, it wasn't worth it anymore. I put in the effort and she didn't; why bother? That might not sound like the best way to cope with the situation, but for me it was. No contact was better than the bitterness I felt towards her every time I was shot down. I was so confused. Like I said, I fit in the "don't" category. To this day I don't know what I did.
I only ran in one track meet. A few I missed for officer reasons, one I missed because I was sick, but one I completely ditched. We rode the bus to Woods Cross High School, warmed up, stretched, and waited on the bleachers for our race. We didn't want to run though, imagine that. My friend and I made up some bogus story about how she had to go to the doctor or something similar and tried to feed it to Kirby. *Kirby was the the coolest gym teacher ever. She wore bright blue mascara for crying out loud aaaand I saw her break up a girl fight. Scratching, pushing, hair pulling, the whole nine yards. Kirby didn't believe us for one second. Too much experience with teenage girls to fall for that. She told us to wait until we ran our races, and then we could leave. Did we wait? Not a chance :) As soon as we saw my friend's mom's car pull up we casually walked down the bleachers past Kirby and then ran at a dead sprint towards the car; that would be the only running we would do for the rest of the year.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This may sound like some sob story about how I lost one of my childhood best friends. To you it may be, but as I was running around that track, this and much much more was running circles in my mind. With my body fatigued and my mind even more so, I drew this conclusion. I am over being bitter. I am over wondering what I did to cause such intense looks of loathing. I am over it!!! The last time we ever spoke I was at her house. I had been calling for a week trying to get some of my clothes back but she wouldn't answer. Finally I just showed up. I'm not the confrontational type. I knew something was wrong but I wasn't completely willing to call her out on it. I asked what's wrong, she said nothing. I said are you sure? I told her she had been acting different, she said she hadn't but "Yes Rylie. Everything is fine." And you know what? Everything is fine. For years I though of that as the biggest lie she ever told. But now I think of it as the truth. We were best friends. Why ruin that? Just because the tangible evidence of our friendship does not exist anymore doesn't mean that it never did. I cherish the memories of our friendship! There is a time and a season for everything. Our season just had to come to an end. No more tainted memories. No more wishing I could go back in time and change things because I don't wish that any longer. I love my friends and I would have never met them if I would have stayed within the same group.
I'm not 100% sure what is meant by a kindred spirit, but I know I have 3 of them. And you know what? There is no "time and season" for kindred spirits. They are with you forever, through thick and thin, rain or shine. They're the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They're what makes friendship beautiful.
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