17 years-old…Not a kid! But not an adult either…

“I feel super old…” I know, to all the readers who are older than me, they are shaking their heads in disappointment wishing they could be a kid again as they chuckle about what the future holds for me: taxes, family, and arthritis. I am tired of being told I am too young to go out late at night ( not that I do that anyways), and that I too old to be engaging in childhood pastimes such as watching Spongebob Squarepants. I am in a part of my life where I am part mutant and part child and still transforming into what society sees as the first breath of life: an adult.

I have had enemies and even more friendships as I grew up. Some friends have been with me for more than a decade, and no I am not talking about my sister XD. But some have traded me in for upgrades to have a taste of “popularity”. I have experienced what it was like to be in the “in group”, but I have had more experience in the “out-group”. Kindergarten to 5th grade was the best time of my life. I was in the elite club where I sat close to the teacher during lunch time and kids would follow my every move. I was the leader of the friend group and worked with 4 other of my best friends to run the school. Did I mention I used to be a bully? The thing that built my fame terrorized my character. I would mainly pick on the class nerds who were identified as gifted, and others would join me… until the 5th grade when I became one. This entire shift in my life felt like the rising action in the book NERDS: Jackson Jones gets braces and everyone thinks he is a freak now.

And this is where life hit pause for me. I lost a couple of friends, I lost my cultural identity due to the new population I was exposed to in the gifted program, and I had a growing predilection for education. I was changing drastically. I also got pimples and had thinning permed hair, but I can discuss that part in a later issue. Today, still like to be educated on matters! But I would say I have a larger friend group who enjoy some of the same things I like: Math, Culture, and Starbucks. And that is all you really need.

— Gabriela Nguena Jones