The drift between friends

By: Kathy C.

Growing up in a low income household meant having to move a lot. I wasn’t prepared as a child to be moving so much. I was perpetually behind in my education, and moving so much made it hard to keep friends. My family and I moved houses around seven times from elementary school to senior year of high school.

As a child, everytime we moved I got excited because I thought that living in one place for so long was extremely boring. Happiness and excitement overwhelmed me as I walked into elementary school ready to say goodbye to my friends and teachers.

During the year 2016, I started junior high in Stockton California, two hours away from where I used to live.

As I got older, making friends became harder for me. I was in my own bubble and was extremely shy. It got harder and harder eating lunch alone and seeing everyone have their own friend groups. Jealousy hit me hard. I was jealous that they had friends, someone to talk to. I was jealous that they weren’t eating lunch alone, like me.

It was my 8th grade year, when I made my first friend in middle school, Valerie. She became one of my closest friends. But, unfortunately, I wasn’t hers. She had her own friends, friends that she made time for. I was desperate for someone to talk to and she was the only one there.

Even when they made plans without me and sometimes didn’t invite me to their birthday parties, I couldn’t take the hint that they didn’t want me around. I kept going and trying to get them to like me.

I remember when it was Valerie’s quinceanera, she invited everyone in our friend group but me. I thought it had been a mistake but it turns out that she just didn’t want me to come. To this day, this horrid memory of the desperate me lives rent free in my head.

But it was okay, since I moved again after 8th grade ended. Around June of that year, I moved to San Jose, California. I started freshman year in 2018 at Independence High School. It was hard to make friends that year because I was new and everyone kinda just had their own friend groups. I had my older sister to depend on though. I ate lunch with her five days a week. She had friends of her own but she never made me feel left out. But it was her senior year, so when I started sophomore year she was already gone.

Starting sophomore year was definitely difficult. I ate lunch by myself for a whole month before I met this wonderful girl named Tina. She made me feel so appreciated and even introduced me to her friend group. Later that year we became as close as ever.

Though the year the pandemic started we started to drift. The constant everyday talking became a “hey how are you?” once a month. My heart ached. I didn’t understand why she couldn’t keep in touch with me but yet everyday her story would be her hanging out with the rest of the friend group.

By the end of junior year, we completely lost touch, I deleted her number and I’m pretty sure she deleted mine. By this point, my heart was completely broken. I felt so lonely.

Senior year, I moved from Independence High School to Yerba Buena High School. I felt relieved when I left, even though I would’ve been graduating without anybody I knew. Here, I didn’t have to worry about making friends or bumping into my old friends. My younger sister had become a sophomore this year and attended school with me. I was also able to leave my past behind and move forward, it was like a new beginning.

It was undoubtedly hard for me to make friends throughout my life but at the end of the day I didn’t need friends to survive. I just needed my family, my two sisters who will always be there for me no matter what.

I hope that my last year of high school will be my best year of high school, because the other years certainly sucked.

For The Warrior Times, this is Kathy Cao.