How To Deal With People And Life
One of the memories that I will always have about when I was inKindergarten, was the day my friend taught me about crayon boxes. She wasmyfirst real friend, and my best friend at the time. One day we werecoloring,and she let me borrow crayons from her huge 64-count box. I thought theywereso cool. My little 24-count box was nothing compared to hers.
As we were coloring, I reached over to put a crayon back in thebox.If any of you have ever used crayons, you know that sometimes they don't goback in as easy as they came out, and that sometimes you end up with a hugebulge in the box. Well, that's what happened with this particular crayon.
I kept trying to force back in the box so it would fit, and my friend didn'tlike that too much, since it was her crayon box. She started throwing afitand I remember her yelling, "Don't force it!" Then she continued to giveme ademonstration on how you push the other crayons out of the way to make roomfor the other one going back into the box.
As we were growing up, we continued to stay good friends in gradeschool. I remember always teasing her about it, and she said she neverremembered that day really, but I know it really happened, because I thinkit was the first time she ever yelled at me.
When we entered high school, things started to change, like theymostoften do. We still talked when we got the chance, but we started to makeourown friends. We've stayed in touch, always saying hi in the halls andeverything, but we weren't the same best friends we were in Kindergarten.
Just this year, my sophomore year, things really started to changeforme. So many different things happened, I felt like I was lost in theworld.I didn't know what to do or who I could turn to.
Then one day my friend came to my locker after school because she saw that I had been crying afterspending the afternoon in the guidance office. She asked me what was wrongand I knew I could trust her, so I told her everything that was going on inmylife. I told her this in a 7 page note and gave it to her in school.
A couple periods later she had stopped me in the halls and gave me a note andtold me how she understood and everything. She wrote me and told me how Ijust need some time for things to get worked out, and that everything willbe okay. At the end of the note, she wrote one of the sweetest things anyonehas ever said to me. She wrote at the end: "I'll give you the same advice Igaveyou back when we were in Kindergarten: Don't Force It!"
When I read that it put a smile on my face, the first smile that Ihad cracked in awhile. I told her that I appreciated the note totally.It'sfunny that out of all the things people have said to me and tried to helpme,those words she wrote in the note were the most inspirational.
It's weird that 10 years later the advice she had given me inkindergarten would help me out so much now. She can't give me ademonstrationon how to push things away, like the crayons, but she made me open up myeyes,just like she did when she yelled at me in kindergarten.
Permission to reprint --- Jill, Age 16 --- Iowa