One is Lonely

For Weekly Anamnesis #38 OBVIOUSLY

Obviously there were no seats left for me at our usual table with my two best friends in the whole world. Walking away from the lunch line with my tray, I could see that everyone at that table was reading a piece of paper, and it must have been really funny because they were all laughing.

As I approached them they quit laughing abruptly, and the person holding the paper shoved it under the table so hard I could hear it crunch.

“I guess I’ll just sit over here,” I said as I walked past them to sit down at the next table. There was dead silence from them, and suddenly a note, folded into the shape of a football, flew over my shoulder and landed in my plate.

I didn't want to open it there, since I could feel all their eyes on me, and their silence crashed through me like a freight train. But it was torture to wonder, so I opened it.

We really don't want to be friends with you anymore.
You have been fun and all, but really we just want to
be best friends, only not with you.

One is lonely,
Two is perfect,
Three's a crowd.

We hope you understand that we just want to be friends.

Val and Jen

I never knew that humiliation burned so bad. I had never felt betrayal of this magnitude. Fourth grade isn't supposed to be life-altering. I'm sure I would have handled it better if they had just held back from showing the whole class their note, but they did, and I knew I would never be the same. It didn't help matters that Val was in my ward for the rest of my life until I was eighteen.

I have many people to thank for the events that occurred as a result of this note...

Thanks Val and Jen, for showing me what kind of friend I don't want to be. From that note on, I never ever wished I was one of the "popular" kids.

Thanks, Mom, for being such a great listener and for letting me cry my sorrows out on your sweet shoulder. You have always been so good at that.

Thanks, E. and V., siblings extraordinaire, for being my best friends for the next five years, until I was brave enough to attempt being friends with someone outside the family.

Thanks, God, for giving me minimal singing talent, and Val and Jen, for helping me to be too shy to want to sing solos for my choir teacher, which led me to switch to Art 1 class in 10th grade.

My art ability gave me self confidence for the first time since the 4th grade.