29/31 - x365 Jenny G... a little longer today

Met you at church - we were friends instantly. You were smack dab in the middle of a big Mormish family: 3 boys, 3 girls. You had long red hair that ran down your back, and in the sun it shone and i frequently would run my fingers through it. You had a very strong streak of the "Middle Child Syndrome" and i became an accomplice to many of your lashouts.

Both of us went to our respective small town elementary schools - but when it was time for all the small town elementary schools to merge into the junior high - we were thrilled that we were in the same class. Our friendship was cemented that year.

You were a badass. You were a bad influence on me - and i loved it. Because of you i eeked out my first real curse word.... 'shit' and when i felt guilty about it you said: "Fuckem!" We learned to shave our legs together in your backyard, in bathing suits. Lots of knicks and cuts and a few bandaids later - we felt all grown up.

You always had older boyfriends. At the time, i thought that was sooo cool - not until years later did i realize that an 20 year old dating a 13 year old meant that he was smarmy and gross, and couldn't get anyone his own age...and also - that it was illegal!

One night, you were sleeping over at my house, and we decided to sneak out and go into 'town' where the parties were. You had this 20something guy come and pick us up and we successfully snuck out to the 7-11. From there, we got in some other car and drove around all night. i didn't find out until months later that the house we went to at 2 in the morning to go swimming in their indoor pool didn't belong to anyone we were with - that i had been part of a break and enter!

We skipped school and went to the park to smoke cigarettes and talk about penises. I had never seen one before - other than in magazines, and neither had you. We both wondered if it hurt.

You had the highest teased bangs i had ever seen, and you wore lots of dark eye makeup - accentuating how pale your readheaded skin really was. i was tomboyish enough to resist the urge to tease my hair - and paint my face (luckily)

In the summers, we used to walk down the creek to the community pool at night and hop the fence and go swimming.

When i moved away, we were both heartbroken. we promised to stay in touch and we didn't. In a way, i was glad to leave because i was given a chance to have a fresh start. You were my freind, but you were also my only friend. I was deemed 'unpopular' and i admit it was partly my association with you. But i was extremely loyal to you and i wore my unpopular badge because i knew that you and i would be friends forever. But after i left, and we never wrote, and we never called, i knew that it was all for the best.

There was a road you were travelling, and my 13 year old self did not know how to get off that road. Luckily - my parents removed me from it before i ended up pregnant at sixteen. Looking back, all the "friends" i had in that town dropped out of school and ended up pregnant, some of them with multiple children from multiple dads - like you. That could have been me.