keep on surviving
Jun 25th, 2008 by charlotte
popularity is a lot like driving in the suicide lane. any minute a car can slip slightly over the double yellow and you are racing back to the curb lane, praying that you keep your life and car intact. or worse, a car can come out of nowhere and knock you out of the game entirely. you just never know. is it safer to keep as far away from danger as possible? or is the speed and thrill of the fast lane worth it.
for some reason, kelly, an extremely popular stoner, deemed me worthy of friendship. one day, after practice, we were both without a ride and were talking like two normal people. the next day she came over to my locker and started talking to me as if we had been friends forever. “party at the pit this weekend. you in?” I casually (or hoped so) nodded before i even realized that i had a) never heard of the pitt, b) had no clue where it was and c) had no idea what drug or drink i would be expected to partake in once i arrived.
a small part of me was afraid that this was a trap until i realized, momentarily, that my life was not a John Hughes movie. high school, my high school, wasn’t like that. sure we had groups, people you generally hung out with, but it wasn’t strictly defined. we didn’t have rules, unwritten or otherwise, about who you had to sit with, who you could talk to, and how you could be labeled.
for instance, in my group of friends there were a handful of lacrosse jocks, a couple of stoners, a couple of alcoholics, nerds, drama geeks, and a dancer or two. it wasn’t that kelly shouldn’t have asked me, or that it was a big deal to the greater population.
it was just a big deal to me, the geek with friends i didn’t really know, with a life i didn’t think i really wanted. it was a chance to hang out with the “popular” crowd doing things that popular kids did and being able to go to school on monday knowing what the pit was, where it was located, and partaking in whatever happened there.
so i didn’t tell jane. i didn’t know exactly if i was supposed to invite people, and figured it was a bad idea. i also didn’t know how jane, who was comfortable in her role of being my best friend when no one was around and then acting like i was a lost puppy she had taken in when others were, would react to someone else wanting to hang out with me. i didn’t tell anyone in my group really. i just wanted to see how easily i could slip from one group to another… see if anyone would really notice.