I'm so stressed, so crazy, so insanely all over the place right now, but I'm happier than I've been in so, so long,

I'm very lucky in life, I know it. Depression, anxiety, mental disorders; none of those have ever plagued me. My family is alive and has a steady income. I have a safe home.

But that doesn't mean I can't be sad, or cause problems in my life. I did for so long. I never really learned social skills properly. Throughout elementary school, I was always the youngest, so I never quite caught up. Every time I made a best friend, they eventually moved away, with the exception of one toxic friend who practically wouldn't let me talk to others, spread rumors about me, and was generally a terrible person that screwed me over for fifth grade. Grades 5-8, I got in with a terrible group. All my friendships but a few outside school were toxic. I didn't think so, I thought the group I joined was fine, I had read about toxic relationships but I thought I was just too shy, and disliking these people was bad on me, not them. But they were so mean, so judgy, I know they talked about me behind my back.

Eventually, I realized what I had done on some level. I left the group with an opportunity and butted into another. Better? Yes. But I was never truly invited, so eventually, as I mentioned once, they dumped me over some random friends of theirs I didn't even know. More specifically, they had those girls ask me to stop following them around all the time, so after lunch and before 6th period, I had to hang around with girls I didn't particularly like and hope they wouldn't kick me out too.

Then I got a new start.

I'm happy!

I'm finally happy!

One of the girls that wasn't directly in that group but I still made friends with? I don't have a name for her, but let's call her . . . Floral. That's a pretty name. Floral and I had known each other for a long time, and over the summer, we hung out twice. That's two times more than I'd hung out with anyone but Dimension in years. We went shopping, much to my ever panicking heart's dismay, and I got through it with only 10,000 mistakes and three cute new dresses, plus a shirt. We worked on the summer math packet and she helped me start to make sense of angles and rays. On back to school night, she introduced me to someone very important. The key to my new start.

Let's call her . . . again, not permanent, but I'm going with Ferrule.

Ferrule isn't much like me, but we did discover we had four classes together, so I ended up getting to know her. We sat together with her friends and my small amount of friends that we had brought from past schools (including Floral).

And the amazing thing is that they're all just so nice. I assumed all middle-high schoolers were self-centered pricks, and that I just had to wait, but these girls are different. I'm sure they still talk about me behind my back, but they don't backstab. In fact, you know what? One day in history, we had to find a group for a project. Right away I signaled to Ferrule, and we made a silent agreement, but once we were released, a swarm of people asked her. Without hesitation I went and found a different group, comprised of Ferrule's best friend (and my new friend) as well as two girls I had gotten to know this year. After class, Ferrule apologized! She actually said sorry about how she wasn't able to get in a group with me! Me, being an idiot, made some accidentally self-degrading comment along the lines of "Oh lol it's fine, that happens all the time". So yeah, major screw up, but whatever.

And that's just the thing! Ferrule is amazing! She's incredible talented at art – although it isn't a passion of hers – she actually talks to me and complements me, she doesn't mind acting weird, she let me in. She let me into her group that had been together for years at her old school without a second thought. We're actually friends.

I'd like to bring up my new school for a moment. I don't exactly hide that my age or grade anymore, because it's much more dangerous to talk about my name, location or appearance than to talk about the obvious fact that I'm 14.

So back on track, I went to the same k-8 school for my entire elementary and middle school career. I've never moved. Now that I'm in ninth grade, I decided to go to the same high school my sister went to. I thought it would be terrible. I thought I would be tortured and get bad grades and never talk to anyone right.

Well, that last one is sort of true, but I actually. Am. Loving. Freshman. Year. How? Sweet Altean Jesus I can barely wrap my head around it. I have all A's and B's, I made those friends I was talking about, and all this work, all the projects? They're actually helping. I used to sit around in my room and look down at my phone in all my free time. I used to shuffle around at my parents' get-togethers not making eye-contact and hiding my face in my phone screen,  despite the fact that it was the only social event type I ever went to. Now, even though I really don't hang out with people as much as I should, I walk around with straight posture and ramble stories at lunch instead of checking Wattpad the whole time and only look at my phone with a confident stance.

I'm panicking right now. Funny, isn't it? Being able to write happy things when you're super stressed? I have to tests  physics project I barely comprehend with a guy I don't even know that well but got in a group with because we sit near each other in physics at my aunt's house in an hour and 15 minutes that will take god knows how long, then my parents are driving him back to his house and I'll have to make small talk, and I really have no clue how I'm gonna get through this, but without situations like this, my life would still be bland, sad, boring.

So I'm actually happy. Finally I'm happy. Privileges couldn't spread joy in me, being busy can. I know I'm still a stupid hormonal teenager that thinks she understand the world when in reality, she doesn't, but knowing I'm finally getting closer to being able to really truly be happy makes me happy.

Sorry about all that, I just had to ramble for a moment.