life lesson?

so maybe this is just a life lesson, i don't know. its been on my mind for the last month, and i wasn't sure if i was even going to post this or not. but i feel like i need to. maybe if i write all this down i'll stop thinking about it day after day. so here it goes...

At the end of march a new girl moved in three houses down from me. she was my age. so it was perfect. finally someone my age. i mean there are two girls but one is a couple years older and the other is just a couple years younger. so a girl that was exactly my age was basically...perfect. she was really sweet and nice and a lot of fun to be around. then she started coming to school. i saw a whole new side of her. but at first i didn't really realize it. my parents did. and my friends did. for some reason i didn't see that she was mean and nasty and rude. at school she was the cool new girl and i was the cool new girls best friend. thats how people knew me now. i heard people saying look thats the new girls friend. i didn't understand that that was a bad thing. she is in foster care, so she has had a different life than i have, she learned things differently than i did. she had different values than i do. the second week that she was here, she started telling people that her and i did drugs together after school together everyday. i had a seventh grader, no joke, come up and ask me if i had any weed i would sell him. this new girl started making out with all of the drugee kids at our school. yes there really are drugees at my school. we have had a couple drug busts this year. anyways... i started changing myself...i changed how i acted....who i was around, which was usually her. i changed myself so that she would like me more and more. in fact i was trying to be more like her. looking back i acted a lot like her. i was more outgoing and loud...cuz usually i'm really quiet and i keep to myself. but i got to be more talkative. but it wasn't a good thing. i slowly started to realize that my friends were really pissed off at me. i would text people and they wouldn't answer back. finally i went to school and started asking people if they were mad at me or something. they all said no. so i just kept hanging out with this girl not noticing that yes, my friends were really mad at me.

i remember the day that i finally truly realized that i was different like it was yesterday. my friend katelynn and i usually walk to sixth period together. but on this day, she didn't wait for me. she saw me and she gave me the dirtiest look i have ever seen and hurried off so she wouldn't have to deal with me. the feeling that came over me was terrible. i felt like i was going to throw up. she was one to tell me that she wasn't mad at me. i didn't understand what was going on. i came home practically in tears that day. i finally realized that people really hated me because i was friends with this girl. even people who didn't know me hated me because of her. i remember my mom said "see kaitlyn, i told you she was trouble, and you didn't believe me." So i decided to text people one more time asking if they were mad at me. i asked them to please tell me the truth. everyone that texted back replied with either a yes or kind of or ya i guess a little. i finally understood. i understood that this girl was trouble and i never saw it. i understood that i needed to get away from her as soon as i could. i understood that people really thought i was doing drugs. me, a girl taught to stay away from these things. i would never even consider doing any of these things. but people thought otherwise. i couldn't believe that people would believe all the rumors she spread. but thats in everyone i think. i know that i have believed things about people that are obviously not true. i just never thought i would be the one the rumor was about. after getting all the yes i am mad at you texts, i realized that i need to clear things up. and i needed to do it fast before other things started. as i explained to my friends what was going on and apologize a billion times plus some to everyone, they forgave me. the only thing left to do was to get this girl out of my life. i was up all night thinking about school the next day. i really didn't want to go. i didn't want to have to be around her. i started hating her. she had ruined my life. she made me ignore all of my friends just so that i could be friends with her. i prayed that for some reason she wouldn't be at school the next day. but luck was not on my side. she showed up at the bus stop. my first thought was to run back home. but what would i do then? my mom would just end up driving me to school and i would still have to deal with her. so running would have been stupid. instead, i decided to not really talk to her. i mean i was still nice but when she started asking me questions, i replied a short answer as possible. after a few days of trying to stay away from her she finally realized that i didn't like her. she started to stay away from me too. except at church. at church we were still buddy buddy. well she was anyway. the following sunday after this whole thing, she told me she was changing foster homes. i was relieved and mad at the same time. i was mad because i still felt that she was the only one my age that lived by me. part of me still wanted to be friends. but deep down i knew that this was a great thing. i knew that she needed to leave. she needed to be out of my life for good so that i wouldn't have anymore unrealistic rumors going around about me. i was beyond happy when i found out the exact date she was leaving. i was practically counting down the seconds. the day before she was gonna leave she told me that we should stay in touch, and i should give her my number so we could still talk and stuff. i told her that i don't think thats a good idea. she got really mad at me. i think she finally realized that i found out all of the stuff she had said about me. maybe she realized that she had done something wrong. who knows. but i hope that with this new family she will find out who she really is and she won't have to tell people lies to make her look cool. because honestly i know she can be a great person. she just needs to stop hiding behind lies and dragging other people into them. and now i am really glad she is gone. my life is back to normal and my friends no longer hate me. life is good. ha ha for now.

i also found something out. i don't know if its a "life lesson" or just junior high drama, but i learned that i just need to be me. i shouldn't change myself so that people will like me more. people love me because of me. not because of something i'm not. and if you can't love who i truly am, then thats your own problem. i am not going to change just for you. so that is just what i am going to do. from this moment forward i am going to be me and nothing else.