🌧 Did I failed?
I have never consider myself someone who "peaked in highschool", mostly because I, well, never "peaked" there. I wasn't in any type of clubs or extracurricular activities, my grades weren't the best and I wasn't a popular kid at all.
During elementary school tho the story was different. I used to be in a class where 28 of the 33 students were "honor students". All of us had excelent grades, we were good a sports (not me of course) and most of us were in some type of extracurricular activity, even in more than one.
I used to be a student with good grades, I was in the music club and in the journalism club. I even participated in school parades helping to hold the school emblem. And, of couse, I had a nice group of friends. It was a normal thing for me to have a friend coming to my house after school at least once a week to play.
I peaked in elementary school.
But when we moved to highschool things changed. I stoped being in school clubs. My group of friends left me behind (or did I left them?) and I was wandering from group to group all the time. My grades went down and I was just a regular student among all.
But that didn't happened to my ex classmates.
You see, I used to be with the exact same class group from Kinder until we entered highschool. More than 8 years looking at the same faces, talking to the same peers and spending time with the same people. We were a group and I was part of it.
When I entered highschool I drifted apart from most of them, is something natural, right? But when I see on Instagram pictures and stories of some of my old classmates from elementary school still hanging out, spending time together and even going to the same Universities I can't help to think that I used to be part of that group at some point, but now I'm absolutely nothing more than a memory for them. If they even remember me of course.
I used to be their friend, I used to spend time with them but it feels only me drifted apart and ended alone while they are still together. They ended in good Universities studing good careers and now most of them have stable jobs. But me? Not me. I ended alone, without friends, studing something because "I wasn't good enought for anything else", not even able to finish it and now I'm just someone without a career and without a job.
What happened? If we used to be the same, had the same education and the same opportunities, in what did I failed? It's like the moment we got into highschool everything went downwards for me and I can't get why.
I know life is not a race and everyone have their own problems and do things at their own pace. But I can't help to wonder why I ended in a totally different path when I started my life journey with them.
Maybe it just wasn't for me? I don't know. But it hurt a little to think about it...
For some reason I feel like if I ever tell them any of this or if any of them end reading this (which I doubt) they will only think something like "that's not true" or "that never happened" or something like "it was your fault". They probably remember me as someone stupid, annoying, a weird kid from their class who never spent time playing outside, was always using their laptop and it was fun to pick on them because it always got angry and that was, aparently, funny. And I don't blame them because it was true.
My memories from that era are blurry because they weren't pleasant ones. I was alone most of the time and I didn't had an actual group of friends until my last two years in school. The only friends I had before that time only one was a sincere friend. The other? I think she was only my friend because their parent made her spent time with me out of pity. The rest of my memories are just... lonely. Full of images of me playing games alone on my computer or studing a lot by myself. They aren't pleasant, but I'm not sure it I can call them painful either.
And now I feel there's no difference. I spend my time alone, in front of the computer, and studing alone because I also didn't got a stable group of friend at University to spend the time. My only friend became my boyfriend so, without him, I'm totally alone.
At least I'm with someone I love and he loves me back. But I can't help to feel lonely in the others social aspects.
I never was someone friend, and when I had friends it was clearly I was a "low tier friend". You know, that friend that isn't your favorite and it doesn't matter at all if it's around or not. I was always that type of friend no matter how deeply I loved them. That's why all of them are still in my memory. Because they were special to me for considerate me their friend, even if now it's a miracle if they even remember me.