Entry posted by Jean Valjean
624 views
I put on my bowtie and visited my cousin's graduation party on May 12, the week before graduation. When I arrived, the number of pictures hit me.
He didn't throw the party alone. He had a couple of good friends share the event. It was something I had wanted to do, though nobody wanted to cooperate with me. Then I looked at all of their pictures they had growing up. Almost every single picture was taken with friends while participating in strange and grand events that I knew nothing about. It was as if my cousin hung out with friends every day, and in the meantime had traveled half the country with them finding new and interesting things to do.
I also looked at the piles and piles of medals adorning his table, the multiple letters of achievement, and multiple plaques. He even had his pilot's license out, his karate belt, and so forth. There were fliers of plays that he's been in, which are so numerous that I've lost count. In some of those fliers are lists of all the activities he's participated in, from chess club to band to improve to cross country to track to student council to National Honor Society to a million other things, and it doesn't even touch on the sheer number of activities in which he was dubbed captain, master of ceremonies, or other honorary title. Let's not forget that whenever there's ever been a microphone, he's the one behind it, constantly speaking for any and all events, from sports to talent shows to pep rallies. The list is actually being modest, because he's constantly invited to star in events that he isn't technically a part of, such as choir shows and middle school events.
By contrast, I had only one picture with a friend up to that point. In fact, in the six years I've gone out for track, I've only successfully been in one team picture due to the crazy extremes that Murphy's Laws take me down at the last minute. Nobody has ever wanted my company after school, and I've never "hung out". Let's not forget that one year the yearbook committee forgot to put my picture in the yearbook.
I have an academic letter, but it's in recognition of my achievements in freshmen and sophomore year when schoolwork was easier. I have a sports letter for simply being in track, and recently I achieved a performance letter for being in four plays, speaking an average of three lines in each (lines which my fellow actors were fond of speaking over). I don't even have a driver's permit or a job. The only thing I've ever been told that I'm god at is art, and I'm beginning to hate that a secondary interest of mine is coming to define me.
My lack of any real achievement would come to haunt me later, but what really depressed me at the moment was the lack of friends. All throughout my time at school, I failed time and time again to spend tiem with people, and I never felt that I was really loved. There's been only one person that I would consider a true good friend, but like all the rest I only saw him at school or at church. Unlike my cousin or the two other friends he was with, I can't lay claim to the sense of being loved and needed, and I was never an integral part of anyone else's life. I feel like I was never relevant, like you could have erased me from the picture and nobody's social life would have changed. Everyone else would have been just as happy had I never been born.
I found a corner and cried until my temples began to hurt. The sheer sense of loneliness that overtook me was despairing. All the things that could have been never were.
Later I wrote the letter "To the Guys".
It was only aleviated the next day when my best friend, Mr. Tacke, and Emma came to my grad party. I wrote about the letter from Emma. I hope this puts my feelings in context.
Your Honor,
Emperor Kraggh
4 Comments
Recommended Comments