My+memoir-SageK.

My Memoir By: Sage K.

I’ll never forget that year, that one-year. But it wasn’t the year that sticks out to me. That was my year of freedom. That was the year that I felt mature. That was the year that we teased Shirley. It wasn’t just teasing. It was so bad she would leave the room in tears. But that didn’t change anything; that just made us tease more. “Look at water works over there crying her heart out.” “Maybe she should just go home and never come back.” I admit, it was mean, but believe me when I say, I wasn’t the one who did that. I just never stepped forward. Shirley was the weird kid of the class. She had the glasses and tried to wear clothes that every one else wore. She had a different body shape than most of the girls so the clothes didn’t always look that great on her. But it wasn’t just her looks that made them laugh. Or was it made “us” laugh. She was smart and always tried to fit in. I’ll give her points for the effort now, but back then, things were different. I guess I didn’t realize that other people had feelings too. I especially didn’t think that Shirley had feelings. Every one teased Shirley. I thought that it was just a game to be played and if you messed up or “lost” that you could just start over again. And sometimes in this game you played great and some times you didn’t. But I guess life isn’t like that. Sometimes an apology isn’t enough, unless you were as desperate as Shirley. I remember one time; Cathy apologized to Shirley and invited her over. I was surprised. But I needn’t hold my breath too long. When they came to school the next day Cathy had found out all of Shirley’s secrets and was telling every one. Now I knew that Shirley wouldn’t be able to trust any one. When I finally got the guts to talk to Shirley (that is when no one was looking) I realized that she wasn’t that different from me. We actually had a lot in common. She liked a lot of things that I liked. She was actually very sweet. But then I wondered why no one else talked to her. People talked to me and she was just like me. When I moved here no one talked to her. I just went with the flow. One of the worst decisions I could make. That might have been one of the reasons why no one ever talked to her. Shirley never went with the flow. She tried to introduce new ideas while fitting in. But now I had talked to her, and I actually invited her over. No one saw, so no one laughed. By the time I started to be nice to her she told me that she was moving away. And believe it or not I would actually miss her. She had turned out to be really nice and I would miss her. I think we all would. Whether it was because they wouldn’t have some one to tease, or because they would miss her presence, we all would miss her. And just like she promised, the next year, she moved away. I now found out that this game could never be played again.