Thursday, February 12, 2004

Without A Trace....

Anybody else watch the tv show Without A Trace? Tonight's show was quite possibly the most moving show I have ever seen. It starts out with this boy named Eric disappearing. I think Eric was inh the 4th or 5th grade. The FBI is looking everywhere for him. THey talk to all of his classmates, but no one knows anything. Eric's best friend, Daron, tells the FBI how this one kid gave Eric a swirlie a week before and almost drowned him. Horrible stuff. But it gets worse. There is this girl, don't remember her name, but a few days before Eric called her dog. He siad "What's up Dog?" and when she answered he said you must be a dog if you answered and laid a doggie bone on her desk. All of the other girls decided to teach Eric a lesson after that. One of them, Brandy (whom Eric is in love with), got Eric to meet her at some horse stables for a "date." When he got there, she told him to take off his clothes, which he did, then she proceeded to tie him to a pole. Then all the other girls came in a were throwing dirt at him and calling him "loser" and all this other mean stuff. The show progresses and they find that Eric felt alone and out of place. He was continuely told how much of a loser he was and that thing with the girls was the last straw. Towards teh end, he called Daron and told him he was going to kill himself. They find Eric with a rope around his neck trying to kill himself outside of Brandy's house on her swing set. The show ends with them reaching him just in time. All of that to a young kid. The show left me on my couch bawling and my father blinking back tears. How could anyone do that? And the scary truth is...it happens all the time. People pick on other kids simply because they are different; because they are outsiders who aren't allowed into certain cliques. I try to keep from doing that to people because I know how it feels. I know how it feels to be left out and alone. I know how it feels to be made fun of because you are different. And nobody can say that it only happens when you are young. I am in high school for Christ sakes and it happens there. People shy away from the special-ed kids because they are different. A few months ago this girl, whom I went to elementary school with and who is also a mentally challenged (she has not changed since the first grade. Her mentality is the same and I fear it will always be the same), dropped all of her papers out of her folder. Everyone just sneered and walked around her, not even bothering to help her pick it up. No one did anything. Then some football player, who would've thought it of this guy, yells out for everybody to stop walking, since she spilled them in the middle of the stair doorway. He then proceeds to help her pick them up and make sure she got them all. Then of all things, he took her heavy back pack and said, "Come on Tina.Let's get you to class." He walked her to class, just to make sure she got there without any further accidents. I was floored. I couldn't believe that one of the kids from the group most likely to make fun of everyone else had done what I had just seen. It is these random acts of kindness that make me believe that maybe our world isn't doomed to selfishness and hatred like everyone thinks. Maybe some good can exist in everyone. Or maybe even, good exists where we least expect. OR better yet, maybe we should all just stop the stereotypes. You know why I was floored when that guy stopped to help Tina? Because he was a jock. Plain and simple. He is a preppy, oh so popular, football player. When I think football guys, I think of guys who only care about what's new in Abercrombie magazine or which girl looks hottest today. I never stop to think that maybe they, too, are feeling alone. Maybe they, too, are just trying to make it out as themselves in this crazy life. Since high school started two years ago, my opinions have changed alot. I learned that not everyone fits into those clear-cut groups that we had in middle school. Not everyone will stay the same as they always have been. I think the best thing for me has been the fact that I have taken advanced courses. Putting me in classes with upper-classmen has done a lot for my perspective. I mean, they are all so different from all of the sophmores I have known since 6th grade. They all have these different traits that I never got to see in older people. Maybe it was because my class was always at the top in middle school, since the school was new and all. We were always the highest grade, so we never knew that people where different from what we were. It's crazy, but then....that's life. I say that I learned alot from upper-classmen and how they are different, but I guess I learned some from kids my own grade too. I had all these ideas about what teh preps that went to middle school with me were all about. I knew that all they cared about was being all slutty and popular. How wrong was I? I found many new friends who used to be those girls that I had always found so disgustinly full of fakeness. First off there was our schools most popular girl, Brianne, or should I say Bri now. I always thought that Bri was all ditsy and that profiled popular girl. Then I got stuck next to her in English class. Boy was I wrong. She has opinions about everything, and surprisingly enough, they are well thought out and planned; detailed and concise. She has changed a bit too I suppose. She has become incredibly smart, something I deemed impossible before. Scary that the head-cheerleader turns out to be one of the coolest people I know, huh? I guess it shows that as we grow older, we change. We learn lessons that we would have never expected 3 or 4 years ago. Life just keeps on shoving things in our direction. And if we can't get by with them or use them well....what are we living for? Meh. Don't know why I just typed all that. I got on a roll, and couldn't stop myself. Just thought you might want a touch of my new-found philosophy to think on. ^__^

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