#11 - Kassie

So now that I'm, oh, four days behind, we come to a troubling subject: my dear aquantance Kassie Ann Wilmot. And pardon me, but I'm terribly excited for Alice in Wonderland tomorrow evening and I'm afraid I've picked up some kind of nineteen-thirties British manner of speaking :]

MOVING ON- I met Kassie in sixth grade drama club, because I was playing her babysitter and trying to convince her to come with me to rob a bank. My name was Carrie Coppins (ahem that's a play on names) and I had to make her eat tofu and she had to scream "I DON'T LIKE TOFU" and let me tell you we got GOOD at that :]. We grew pretty progressively closer through seventh grade, and when she had to take some crap from some of her good friends at the start of eighth I stood there with her and took what I could. Through the fall, winter, and part of spring of eighth grade, she was my best friend. The best friend I'd ever had and to this day have ever had. We could talk about everything, she was the first person I called for advice or just to hang out, and she knew what I was going to say before I said it.

Note the past tense there. I started playing guitar about a year after she had, last winter, and I think she thought I was competing with her. After that, our friendship was a little fragile, almost an off-and-on kind of thing. Then Emily, Brittany and I started hanging out and Kassie got a little pushed out. Then she and those friends that she fought with earlier started to come back together and I felt a little pushed out. From then until the summer was just a long train of events that ended with us silently hating each other. We started talking again at the beginning of this school year and I was really pumped, hoping maybe I could get a little piece of that one amazing friendship back again, and one day in mid-October it just all fell apart. I wasn't even there when it happened, but I came to lunch and Kassie was gone. Aparrently one of our friends had blown up at her with one of those "no one likes you" things and it was just STUPID because I'd thought she knew that at least I cared- but since then, I've tried to make conversation, left her myspace comments, sent her notes and emails, even smiled at her in the hallway. And all she'll do is look the other way. It hurts more than anything I've ever felt. It hurts as much as leaving ballet hurt, worse, because I know it's partly my fault. I have NOT been the greatest friend to Kassie and I'm a million percent aware of that, but I only wish she could find it in her heart to forgive me or at least acknowledge me. Heck, I just wish she'd come back to church or give me some assurance that she's not taking antidepressants like she said, but I'm starting to think that's just wishful thinking.

All in all, the past three years with Kassie have taught me SO MUCH. Most important is probably how important it is to think about consequences: had I cared about her instead of myself, I wouldn't be where I am now. Again, God gives and God has taken away, and while I have what I have, isn't it a sin to take that for granted? And if I'm ever in her place, which I have been and I'm sure I will be in the future, God, make me merciful and able to see from another's point of view. Maybe I think they're getting what they deserve, but guys, please remember this, NO ONE deserves being totally ignored by someone who means a tonn to them.

where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
somewhere alone in the bitterness
and I'll stay up with you all night
had I known how to save a life...