Fourteen

Hi! It’s Marley!!

It’s officially summer! What better time to start a new diary? I’ve officially graduated from middle school and I’m starting high school in a few weeks. Luckily, I have the summer months to hang out with my friends. I’ve only lived in this town for three full years, since the start of sixth grade, and it’s been hard to find a good group that I mesh with. But for the most part I really trust them. I feel like we all mesh well together, and that feels nice. I already tested out and got banished from one friend group that left me without friends for a year. But that’s a story for another page. It doesn’t matter now, it feels good and I’m actually excited.

I’m also excited about starting school because Collins and I will be in the same school since elementary school since she’s three years older than me. She’s even going to let me ride to school with her since she’s a senior, though that’s only because our mom is making her because I live too close to the school for a bus to come pick me up. I hope when her friends say hi to me in the halls it makes me look cool because I know a bunch of upper classmen. I probably need the help.

I’ve still got my braces (kill me) and I don’t think I’m getting them off before the start of school. So fun. It’s fine. Honestly though, Hannah has a bright pink expander that makes a huge gap between her front teeth so I think she’s maybe in a worse position in the metal mouth community than me. I had to get the clear kind of bracket anyway because my mom thinks the bright metal ones look tacky. I never get to pick cool colored rubber bands like everyone else. You’ve got to have straight teeth in this town, it’s a sin not to.

It takes a certain type of person to flourish in this kind of environment. I know that already and I’m only fourteen. My mom says that everyone here has their best foot forward, and if you don’t, then you better get it there quick. It’s a long way down. It was a whole new ball game of high maintenance when we moved here, and even the jump from elementary to middle school was a slap in the face for me. Collins and I were both essentially a year behind academically from our old county so I never learned what everyone else in my grade during fifth grade. And we just kind of had to catch up. I couldn’t find my footing. But I’m coming around, I think! Hopefully I can take high school by the horns. (balls?) Idk.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Hi! It’s Marley!!

I think I’m officially classified as a loser. How can I go into high school when I haven’t even kissed a boy? That’s so embarrassing. I just turned fourteen a week ago, and I’m so old that now I have to pretend like it’s not my first time if it ever does happen. And now, what HIGH SCHOOL boy is going to want to be my FIRST kiss? How am I going to get the older boys to like me? They’re going to think I’m a child. Most the girls in my grade are all making out with boys already, they all have boyfriends and places to go where they can be alone together. Even Collins had her first kiss in middle school and she was way dorkier than me. I mean none of my best friends have actually kissed anyone either – but they’re all on the same dork boat as me. Oh my gosh, I really hope that I’m not the last one. That would also be embarrassing. It’s not all my fault though! It’s not like I have boys lining up at my doorstep. I’ve never once had a boy that was interested in me. Actually, that’s a lie, I did have one of my friends ask me out in English class in seventh grade, but I said no because I was still secretly playing with my American girl dolls at that age, not kissing boys. But other than that, the well has been pretty dry. Collins has her first real boyfriend this year, and they’re always together at the pool hanging out. I’m sure they’ve kissed obviously, but I try really hard not to think about that. So gross. Anyway, she’s a senior and they’ve been together for more than a year now. So technically I guess she didn’t’ get a real boyfriend until her junior year so maybe I’m not THAT far behind. Though, even I can tell that Collins isn’t exactly at the top of her grade’s popularity list anyway. We’ll see I guess, maybe there will be a whole new dating pool with boys that are interested in me.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Hi! It’s Marley!!

I slept over at Kendall’s last night with Hannah and Emma. We usually sleep at Kendall’s when we’re allowed to have sleepovers because her room is the biggest. She recently got to move her room up to the third floor because he brother already left for college. So now we have SO much more privacy up there where her little brother can’t spy on us, or listen at the door to our conversations. She only has a twin bed, and when it’s just me and Ken we usually just share it, but if it’s all four of us we make a giant pillow pile on the ground and sleep there. We call it the ‘cuddle puddle’ and we just laughed and talked all night about how we’re all so nervous for high school.

The main topic of was the tons of new people that come in from the other middle school, and how we’re all anxious how the whole social caste system will coagulate with all new groups of people. What if we are less popular that we were in middle school? That would be – you guessed it – embarrassing.

But I’m actually feeling really good about my group right now. There’s four of us, which is nice because there’s always someone on your side if we get in a disagreement. Which we definitely do sometimes. And if it’s three against one, you definitely know you did something wrong. But for the most part I think our personalities complement each other in the best ways.

Emma is really sporty, she plays softball, and is going to try out for the varsity team this year. She’s pigeon toed, so we always get a giggle of how she runs the bases. But she’s also really smart, and she cares a lot about her grades and doing well on her tests. Which means a lot, because she’s in all advanced classes, and they’re always a lot of work. She’s probably the smartest out of us. She has a good sense of right and wrong that she always follows no matter what. Which, I think, makes her a really good friend, because you know she will always stick up for you and tell you the truth when you ask her for advice.

Kendall is also very academically driven. She’s little, with dark features, and a large personality. Ever since I’ve known her she has always had a clear vision of exactly what she wants to do in her life. Sometimes she can come across as bossy, and rude, but she goes after what she wants. She wants to be a teacher, and I’m sure she will. She’s been dancing her whole life and is trying out for dance team this upcoming year. I’m sure she will make it easily, even as a Freshman. But then she also still has this silly personality quirks that make us laugh all the time. Sometimes she can come across as ditsy around other people, but that’s all a ruse if you ask me. She likes to make people laugh at her and I think she likes the attention.

And then Hannah is so effortlessly carefree. She never says no to a fun time, and she’s got such an easygoing personality it’s hard not to immediately gel with her. She’s so nice to everyone all the time, even people she doesn’t know or that are really dorky and weird. She says hi to everyone. She’s the kind of person that first catches your eye in a group of people. She’s a natural beach-bum, bright blonde, and she’s always really tan. Boys always like her first, but her parents are so strict she’s not allowed to do even normal things for our age. She also dances, and will be trying out for the dance team with Kendall once school starts.

And then there’s me. I’m not sure what I bring to the group. People say that I’m funny, but I generally just feel so awkward around groups of people. Sometimes my jokes land, and sometimes people cut me weird looks instead. I don’t know what I want to do when I’m older, I can barely take care of myself now. I’m not very academically minded, I have far too many learning disabilities to like school. But I do excel in the arts, and in sports, so at least I have that going for me. I hope I can find more of myself in the next year, and I hope the transition from middle to high school won’t be so rough for me.

Anyway, that’s all for now.

Hi! It’s Marley!

I just got home from babysitting my little neighbors. I deeply regret it. Collins and I are really the only teenagers on our street, and the rest of the families are way younger than my parents and they all have kids that are toddler aged. So, whenever they need someone to babysit so they can go out at night, it’s always us that gets asked. Collins has grown out of babysitting, since she’s almost eighteen and has better things to do on a Saturday night. I’m a loser, so I never have anything to do.

Tonight, I was at the neighbors across the street, and their two girls tend to torment me on the regular. Beef with toddlers? You betcha! These two kids are so smart, and stubborn, and that is a lethal combination in a three-year-old. So, at first, they wanted to play in the playroom, which was fine. But then after about an hour they wanted to go outside to play in the backyard. They wanted to swing, which apparently, they couldn’t do alone, because one of them fell right off the swing and landed on the ground and was crying. I made sure to hold on to them after. Then one of them wanted to go to the bathroom, so we all went back inside.

It was a trick. I got tricked by a three and four-year-old. They said they wanted to go back outside after, so I headed toward the door and went out first. I was expecting them to follow me out into the back yard. Nope, they just shut the door behind me and locked it. I got LOCKED OUT by these little demons. Then they just stood in the window laughing at me while I yelled at them to let me back in. I finally said I was going to get my mom and they were going to be in trouble before they let me back in.

Then it was time to read them stories for bed, and I was really tired and just wanted them to go to bed. So, I was trying to skip pages as I was reading all these picture books. But the little girl kept telling me that I was skipping them, and making me go back and read them anyway. Then she told me that I was bad a reading (the nerve!) Excuse me, but you are four. If she already knows what happens in the book, then why can’t she read it to herself?

So needless to say, I probably won’t be babysitting for them anymore. Even though they always pay really well, I don’t have the self-esteem to be bullied by toddlers.

Anyway, that’s all for now!

Hi! It’s Marley!!

I’ve been traveling this weekend for a swim meet. The same thing I have done for most of my life. Collins started swimming competitively when I was three, and we started traveling to other cities for meets several weekends a month. I started swimming myself when I was in kindergarten, and it was always really important to us. When we were little Collins really wanted to make it to the Olympics. We used to go to meet and greets with the girls that tour after the Olympics, and we knew everything about the splits for all the events. Though, the Olympics were always her dream, not mine. It’s really more her thing. She’s a lot better than me, too. When I was younger, I played a lot of other sports. I danced, played soccer, cheered, played lacrosse, and took diving lessons. But now I’m at the age now where my coaches are pressuring me to quit any other sports and activities to start taking my training more seriously and start with two-a-days, which means I’ll have a two-hour practice at 5am and then have another two-hour practice directly after school. And I’ll have weight lifting to do in a gym as well. My coach is kind of an asshole anyway, and I’ve been begging my mom to let me quit for a few years now but she won’t let me. She says I’m already going to be at the meets with Collins, and she says swimming teaches me discipline. I’m not sure I would have chosen swimming as my sport if I wasn’t already thrust into it because she did it first.

Anyway, the meet this weekend is only two hours away, but it was an outside pool, which are not my favorite because I’m a backstroker and the sun always blinds me. Though I do have some mirrored goggles like sunglasses that I wear now. They look pretty cool. The outdoor pools aren’t the worst part of summer season. It’s that they’re long course, which is 50 meters long, like a real Olympic sized pool. Most summer neighborhood pools are only 25 meters. I’m stronger on turns and with long course there’s only half the normal amount of flip turns in the longer pool. I’m also swimming for my neighborhood summer league team, like I do every summer. That part never really stresses me out, its more for fun than anything. We’re not even actually supposed to be doing it because it messes up our year-round training with extra mileage. So, I don’t even go to practice during the summer, Collins and I really just show up at meets, but we win everything we swim usually and I’m sure our summer coaches know we’re training harder and swimming several more miles a day at our competition team practices. Training doesn’t stop, I still have 5am practices, even during the summer. My summer coaches also make the other kids swim a wide variety of things because it’s not like they’re any good at them anyway. I refuse to swim events I don’t like and when my summer coaches try to make me I just tell them that I won’t show up behind the blocks for the race. Collins and I both clean up, bring in them several medals in almost every event we swim, and I’m not wasting my time swimming my bad events. Though, we win so often that we stopped collecting ribbons because we have dozens of shoe boxes of them at home. We just dump them in the trash now. Sometimes I’ll give the ones I win to little kids to show off because they really like having them even if they aren’t theirs. I count that as my good deeds for the week.

Anyway, that’s all for now.