I've always been a quiet, "shy", and isolated girl.

It never had a negative effect on me aside from the

occasional “You’re so quiet!” until the 7th grade, when I moved to a small town in southern Maryland with my
grandparents. Despite being a "shy" girl, I knew how to make friends. When I started my first day of school, I
made it my mission! Although months later, I had no luck. Everyone already had their established friend
groups, and I didn't fit into any of them. I took the hint that everyone in the school grew up together and
weren’t interested in adding anyone to their groups. So, I stopped trying and kept to myself. I started to feel
anxious and embarrassed sitting in the cafeteria alone after I began to hear "I feel so bad for her!", "Look at
that girl, sitting alone." Though I never minded being alone, it was being in a room with almost 200 kids and
feeling like everyone was judging me that wore me down. After a while, I asked the principal if I could read in
the library during lunch. I was told no and that I had to sit in the cafeteria like everyone else, she didn’t
understand why a kid would want to be somewhere quiet and alone than with other people. I began to
believe maybe something was wrong with me.

Fast Forward to the end of 8th grade, I finally found a friend. We became best friends. She was the
first person in the school that I had met that didn't think something was wrong with me. We did almost
everything together. We supported each other in a world of strict cliques and everyone striving for popularity
as we entered the 9th grade. Sounds like a cliché, but it was real. Through her I made lots of friends. With the
social hierarchy being new to me, I didn't care if any of these friends were real or not. I had friends and I
didn’t have to be seen alone anymore. My friends would often joke around about how I was the weird kid
back in middle school. Nothing else mattered to me more than turning my reputation around, I was tired of
being reminded of that people thought I was a loner.

The day came to where my best friend betrayed me. I mean, the red flags were always there but
subconsciously I ignored them because, well, I had a best friend! After word got out about what she had
done, my phone exploded with messages. “Why aren’t you doing something about it?”, “You’re going to let
her get away with that?” I was hurt and sad and wanted to move on but, I was under pressure by my friends
to confront her about it. Even though I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to lose my spot in the friend group. I
confronted her in school, and we ended up in a fight. The vice principal was shocked when she saw that I was
one of the girls involved and after I was honest about what had happened, she recognized I was acting out of
character for the sake of my peers and suspended me for 2 days instead of the normal 4.

A week after the fight, I got a lot of attention in school. It was the most popular I had ever been. It
seemed like everyone had forgotten about that girl from middle school, but it just didn’t feel right. I hid that I
was ashamed about what had happened. One day, I looked myself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the girl
staring back at me. I said to myself, “What are you doing?”

School ended and throughout that summer before 10th grade, I worked a lot and reflected on myself.
I met a lot of people that summer, none like the ones from my small-town high school. People who liked me
for who I really was. By the time 10th grade year started, I was that girl from middle school again. Only this
time, I understood that I didn’t fit in and that it was okay. After months of self-reflection, I had come to learn
that I wasn’t a shy girl like I was labeled by others. I was an introvert, and I found that there are millions of
people just like me. I was an introvert without self-confidence or self-esteem, and I cared too much about
what other people thought. I broke off the friendships from 9th grade and put that year behind me. I keep a
small circle of friends, I know my worth, and I enjoy spending my lunch periods alone in the library without
the anxieties I had in middle school. The mistakes I made and the bad company I kept, is what led me to
understand more about who I am and where I belong. Also, that company who doesn’t accept me for who I
am and who distracts me from my priorities, is not company that I should or want to keep.