I remember you told me to take it easy

One thing that will always be constant, is people always change. And I mean, I know that's obvious.. But it always has amazed me seeing people I haven't seen in a while, and seeing how they end up. In middle school I had this friend named Julia. She was my first cruel friend. I met her through Justin, or maybe it was Mackenzie.. I'm not really sure anymore. Julia introduced me to people I never thought I would know, and brought me into things that were out of my comfort zone. Every day we spent time together felt like some type of lesson. Like I was a blank disk and she was trying to record on me. She was my first friend who would be honest to me about everything, her way of helping me. She would say in front of a big group of people that we were with, out loud, in front of everyone, that I was being awkward. She would tell you her tricks, and then show them on other people in front of you. She would push my phone away from me when my dad was texting me saying come home and say, "Lets go somewhere." instead. She pointed out things in people I never noticed. She made fun of everyone. My friends, her friends, me, herself, everyone. People hated her because everyone knew they were a target in her eyes. Anybody that walked by, something would be said. She would speak loud enough so people would hear here, and then laugh real loudly. She was the perfect example of what your parents told you to stay away from when you were younger, she was exactly what people described as the type of person as "someone who has no confidence." She said she looks in the mirror every day and says the things she hates about herself. She had her problems, but she still had her confidence, too. What always amazed me was how everything she did, seemed like it was all planned out to the core. It all went so perfectly, fit right into plan, was in single file, like it went exactly the way she intended. She tells me she wants to know my best friend Mackenzie, and then Mackenzie is her next door neighbor. And now going to Mackenzie's house is hopping over the fence in the middle of the night to go to Julias. And little by little I watched Mackenzie become everything Julia was creating her into, everything I never let her record on me. She never wanted to stay at home. She would never let her mom drop us off infront of anyone because she said her moms car was embarrassing and her mom in general was embarrassing. We didn't have cars, so we'd just walk everywhere. And somehow everywhere we went, she would take us to come across the funniest things, she's one of the funniest people I've ever known. How did we end up here, and this exact time, for that hilarious thing to just happen? It's like there was a script hidden somewhere. We would go to sheldon and she'd bring this old blue boom box and turn the volume all the way up, we layed on the concrete. She was either blasting the Indian music station, or opera, because it was funnier. The summer night when she saw a door open to the school and told us to follow her as we snuck in. We ran through the halls until we heard someone yell something at us, and we all ran out and ended up hiding behind a big bush, which we never really left from. I remember the first cigarette she handed to Mackenzie, and the first time they snuck to the backyard to get high. I remember her telling me to not trust her. She took the longest time getting ready, and would refuse to go somewhere if there was something wrong with how she looked. But one time it was pouring while we were at her house so I made her go outside, we walked through her neighborhood in it until she had soaked hair and smeared make up. And when we took pictures, or when I took pictures of her, she didn't hide her face. She kept smiling and kicking the puddles. That was one of my favorite times.

When she ended things with people, whether it was relationships or friendships, it was always in a cold way. Not really cruel, just so quickly and when you would least expect it. It was sort of a mutual understanding with everyone that came into her life, that you were just temporary. She made that clear. I even remember talking to her about graduation in high school and saying something like, "We have to do something crazy before or after graduation." And she said, "Will we even still be friends by then?" Sometimes there wasn't a reason for her leaving, and sometimes she wouldn't even bring them up again, but she always knew when and how to do it, or how to push them away. The last time I remember spending time with her was a little before my freshman year. We hadn't seen each other for a couple weeks, I guess we sort of just stopped talking. We were in front of Sheldon with a pretty random group of people and a couple mutual friends. And nothing had happened between us, at all, the last time I could remember us hanging out before that was us sitting on her front steps eating top ramen raw, and watching cars go by. While we were standing there, a couple weeks later, she wouldn't look at me. She'd be laughing about something else with someone else, and I didn't even try to talk to her because she didn't either.. It was weird. And when we left, we didn't say anything. I didn't see her at school anymore. I didn't text her anymore. I didn't go to hers, or Mackenzie's house anymore. She was on to the next one, and every year I saw her less and less.

Yesterday she added me on Facebook. A couple years ago she deleted everyone she had known off of Myspace and Facebook when she switched schools. I was surprised to see we had no mutual friends, she added me first before anyone else.. But what surprised me more, was what she had become. She's engaged, and there's all these pictures of her her and her fiance who now live with each other in Washington. She's 18. Now she loves big trucks and shotguns. She likes country music and dresses like a "cowgirl." She is everything that she would make fun of in the past. Posting pictures she of herself that she would make me delete back then. It's like she had all these social rules before, that she completely dropped now. It's all so different to the point where I wondered if she's even really being serious. Like maybe this is just another lifestyle she's testing out.. Because I had watch her switch her rolls so many times before. But when I thought about it, and when I kept looking through the pictures, I was thinking maybe she really is happy now. Maybe going to Washington was her final exit, and maybe she's in the place she always wanted to be before. I think she was miserable being stuck in what she had to be here in Eugene. And I think we're all just waiting for our turn. For everything to fall into the places we want them to be. She ended up happy with things that could have never pleased her before.

If I would of told julia this is how she would turn out four years ago, she would of laughed, and told me to shut up. And that's what makes my head spin. If there's one thing I can expect, and accept, it's that my roll will change one million times, but I myself, will end up happy too. Our future really can't be seen.