Who am I? I find myself asking that question a lot these days, and I’m here to report that I do not have a definite answer. I know who I’m not, though.
   

 In 6th grade I had every friend but no friends. I constantly trudged behind groups of people in an effort to get them to talk to me. My too-tight clothes and my scraggly middle part were no match for the popular 6th grade girls I wanted nothing more to impress. The dust of my hot pink eyeshadow littered all over my papers, and my knock-off Victoria’s Secret perfume hung around in my room like the odor of a rotting carcass.  My color-clashing clothing combinations were nothing more than a comical act to them, but hey; at least they thought of me.
     

I was thrusted into 7th grade with jet propulsion. The quick assimilation into the student body of nearly 550 puberty-stricken tweens was key for my survival of middle school. If I wanted to thrive here I had to rapidly jettison the old me. On the 2nd lunch of 7th grade (I know it’s dorky how I remember the exact one) I noticed an average group of girls sitting at a crusty old table and eating sandwiches cut to look like dinosaurs. Being my audacious self, and riding off of the self confidence wave of 6th grade, I sauntered over to the unsuspecting girls and sat down. The girls all said hi, my twin included. I was shocked; no one had actually talked me for this long! I was excited. My twin had discovered this group of students before, there must be something intriguing about them. My sister never went through the bizarre phase that I went through, lucky her. To my surprise the girls actually conversed with me. This change was so different yet so powerful that little-by-little I evolved. All of the previous acts that I had put on for attention faded away like cheap crusty makeup being washed away. My fashion sense changed to the delightfully average one that I currently have today. I much prefer to wear baggy old sweatpants to school rather than clothes that look like they were made to fit the average 10 year old. I will add that it is a lot more comfortable to wear the clothes that you want as opposed to the ones other people think are cool. Cool in 6th is not necessarily cool in high school. I learned that the hard way. Before this drastic change I looked like I was cut out of an Abercrombie Kids advertisement. The more time I spent with these people the closer we grew as friends, and the further I dug deeper into the mine of self discovery. It’s incredible how a simple act such as talking to someone can change a person’s life. This had been proven true through my own personal and cringe-worthy experiences. I feel that if I hadn’t had built up the courage to talk to those friendly girls in 7th grade lunch I would have fallen deeper and deeper into the abyss of complete loneliness and superficiality.
     

I owe the character that I am today to the struggle of the past and the friends of the future. My somewhat reserved nature and positive attitude would not have been discovered without the constant rejection by my peers in 6th grade. Today I am proud to say that I have changed from a fake and superficial 6th grader to a mature and completely original freshmen. Why did that sound like it came out of a feel-good book for teens? Oh, the power of friendship and puberty.