Jessicca Holly Dub

***warning. extremely long post**

It is past midnight and I have already been asleep for well over four hours. I guess that is why when I woke up I can't go back to sleep. Many people who know me know that my memory is crap. I don't remember lots of stuff. I don't really care. I never pay attention to the details in the long run and I don't really mind that I don't remember what happened eight hours ago much less eight years ago.

Randomly as I have been trying to fall asleep the past week as I lay there in bed on the verge of dreamland I will remember events that happened in elementary and junior high. Fun times. Things that really made me happy. I have been prompted to write them down so there I am at midnight grumbling as I emerge completely from any sort of chance I had at sleep and fumble around in the dark to find a pen and something to write on.

"Empty cable switch that left a hole in the wall. We used to roll up notes long and circular to pass to the classroom on the other side."

"Veronica's mom used to come to pick her up from school to go shopping. I was envious because even at the age of seven I wanted a sexy name that started with a V. I thought it was sexy because I thought V's were very hot to write."

"First grade track and field theme was Sneed's startrackers"

"looking up at my frist grade teacher mrs. sneed and feeling like she was ten feet tall."

The list continues....

I don't know why I am having all of these memories or where they are coming from. I mean they are all insignificant. However, there are sticky notes all over my desk and hopefully I will get to journaling more in depth about those memories soon.

Tonight however I can't sleep.Instead of remembering good times I am haunted by my one regret. Anyone who has ever asked me if I had any regrets in my life knows I carry just one. This is really for the sake of me writing it and hoping I will be able to sleep after this. Feel free not to read it. It might be long and it really has no point. Of all my life experiences I don't regret any of them except one. Let's get started shall we?

I was a weird child. I am a weird adult. There is no secret there. I blame it all on my parents really. J&M were different kind of parents and we lived in a different kind of neighborhood. If you can call it a neighborhood. While there are many residential developments in the city I grew up in there is this one block out in the middle of nowhere (well at least it was nowhere 20 years ago when we first moved there-eww....I can't believe I am old enough to say that. sick) Anyway. There were mostly geriatric people that lived in this secluded piece of block. Each house mostly laid on close to an acre of property if not more. The houses were still pretty close together we just had expansive backyards and such. I believe there were six or seven other houses with kids between these four streets that formed a block but we were different ages and it wasn't really conducive to us playing in the streets. We all just played in our huge backyards I suppose. And I , well I had four siblings so I guess I spent most of my time playing with them. I really couldn't tell you. I don't remember. Any other children that lived in the city lived miles away. Not really easy to get to when you consider a 6 year old has no transporation. Crossing major highways by yourself isn't really allowed.

Anyway, this is all to set up the stage. Each school year I looked forward to school. Not friends. I made tons of friends but we only hung out during school. I didn't really care I suppose. The school bell would ring and I would get on the bus and head home. Others would make plans to play after school or call each other but not me. It was time to head to the casa where I would be for another evening. I do remember very vividly sitting in the hallway of Walter Hall Elementary waiting for my bus. This kid in my class Elisandro asked for my number. He was a babe. Every girl in second grade wanted him to be their boyfriend. Except me. I was 8 and knew I had another 8 years before my dad would let me date. That was the fact of the matter and I took it VERY seriously. I never tried to sneak around or rebel. Well....Eli as we used to call him, asked for my number. I wouldn't give it to him. He then proceeded to lunge over me and grab the tag attached to my backback. Amanda B. C. Address..... PHONE NUMBER. 332-001....quick! He and "his boys" each memorized a portion and wrote it down. Good teamwork boys. I immediately burst into tears. Please don't call me! Please! My dad will kill me! My dad won't understand! Please don't call me! The fear of being physically punished flashed through my mind and I might as well have been screaming bloody murder in the hallway. Well if that wasn't attractive I don't know what was....needless to say he never called.

After that day I remember kids thinking about me a little differently. They knew never to call me because I lived far away but now they really wouldn't call. The girls anyway! Well....about a year after that incident I started 4th grade. (it was at the end of the year in second grade.) That is when I met Jessicca Holly Dub. I had forgotten until this second that she had two c's in her name. See how all the memories just come flooding back? Well...Jessicca and I were kindred souls. I had never met someone I actually cared about and that was so much like me. I WANTED to play with her after school. Normally I went to school, came home, slept, repeat. I didn't care about the kids at school. In fact Until high school I had a game I played that I pretended I didn't know anyone when I Came back for school after the summer had ended. I mean...it had afterall been a few months since I had last seen everyone. I was too cool for them. Well...Jessicca. I can't even remember. In efforts to make this post a little shorter we were best friends. The first one I had had. Fourth grade year was bliss. My parents even took me to her birthday party and she came to mine. ( I wrote Jessicca Holy Dub on her birthday card and she kept saying how Holy she was and teasing me becauseI spelled her name wrong. ) She got me a board game. The game of Life. We were in a class play and I remember my mom came. It is the only event I think my mom ever went to my whole 12 years of being in school. Jessica's mom went as well. I remember them talking. Her mom wore a scarf on her head and I remember thinking it was weird for a second and then never really thought more about it.

In fifth grade they changed the boundaries and my block and the neighborhood that was closest to me had to switch schools. That meant three fifth graders would now go to a different school. Jessicca was one of them and they put us in the same class. Life could not have been sweeter! Our friendship developed and I believe on the rare occasion my parents would let me go to her house. It was only three or four times the whole year because they did have to drive me there but it was about a five minute drive so it wasn't bad. That summer I remember I even got to go to softball practice with her and her dad! J was crazy insane and I was NEVER allowed to go places with just people's dad. I remember feeling like I had won the lottery or something. This time when I went to her house I remember there was a bed in the formal living room right as you walked in. We had to be quiet because her mom was sleeping and not feeling well.

So...sixth grade comes along and Jessicca and I are STILL best friends. We are now on the same bus and we were the only sixth graders who got to sit in the back. I believe we were the second to last seat on the left hand side. We were already so cool for sixth grade and basically inseperable. Well....one day at lunch the counselor came to get her and she was gone for the rest of the day. This is where it gets tough. This is where I feel like I want to cry. Later on that day I got pulled out of class. As her best friend they found it their obligation to tell only me and the teachers that Jessicca's mom had passed away that morning. I cried. I was in shock. I had no idea her mom was even sick. I was so naive. Who had ever heard of cancer as an 11 year old? Surely not me. Well.... I told a few kids later on that day. The counselor gave me the funeral information but I felt I couldn't go. I mean after all...Jessicca had not invited me. She had never even told me her mom was sick. Who was I to show up in her personal out of school life? I remember I came home and told my parents. Want to know what they said or did? Nothing. No one explained to me that her mom had been sick. No one said let me take you to the funeral. No one did anything. So I did nothing.

One of Jessicca's neighbor's found out about the funeral and went. I remember them talking about playing around at her house after the funeral and I felt very envious. I wanted to play around too! Darn! I should have gone! (This is where I could slap my former self). This was early 6th grade. I don't exactly remember when. All I can remember is that shortly after Jessicca's mom died they went on some sort of vacation. She got one of those long thread things they braid into your hair. It was in tehre for a while. I thought it was absolutely disgusting. Also, she was going through puberty and she started to smell and get hair in her armpits. She didn't shave and I even more.... I thought....this girl is disgusting. No once for a second did I think, hey, this girl just lost her mom. Maybe her dad doesn't know how to deal with a girl who is getting her period and has to start shaving and all that stuff. Instead I thought....SHUN HER! So I did. She was cramping my style. I was soooooooooooooo mean to her. Incredibly mean. I stopped talking to her. We sat together on the bus and one day we got into an argument and I wouldn't let her sit on the aisle or near the window or whichever side was the cool side. I don't remember. I told her she couldn't sit with me anymore. I used to hang out in the orchestra room before school because she couldn't follow me unless she had an instrument. One day someone snuck her by and she came in to give me my christmas present. Nail polish. I grudingly took it and then we had christmas break. I don't remember talking to her after that. Not until high school. It turns out Jessicca was incredibly good at sports and actually surpassed me in popularity the next year. I still pretended I didn't know her.

And I can't believe that I wasn't there for her. I can't believe that when she needed her best friend most I was mean to her. In my defense I think my parent's should have stepped up and explained a few things to me because kids are cruel but it was still my fault. My parent's didn't shun her. I did. It has been nearly twelve years since the incident and for the past six it has haunted me at night more times than I would like. It almost brings me to tears everytime. I mean I am a horrible writer and I can't even convey the way I behaved. What is so ironic is I can't ever remember being outright mean to anyone else like that in my whole entire life. Why on Earth would I treat my best friend who needed me like that? Looking back I just think of how life could have been different. And too many times I wish I could go back to sixth grade and be the friend she needed. I have had a lot of life experiences and none of them do I ever wish I could redo. I hated my life growing up and I hated my parents. I hated my existence. Everday was hell for me. And even knowing that, if I could go back to one point in my life and redo life all over again I would. I would go through another seven years of hell to be the kind of person I should I have been. But going back knowing what I know now, I would make different choices and I know for sure I wouldn't be here in Utah. I wouldn't be friends with Sarah Anderson and Kens and Jade and so many of the people I know and love now. Is it worth it? I mean.... how do you answer that question? I don't suppose I will ever be able to forgive myself for that. I suppose I shall be haunted by that for the rest of my existence. But hey...eternity isn't that long right?