Young and Dumb

I’ve always wanted a girlfriend. Always thought that being in a relationship, or being in love would make me happy. I got that idea from watching my parents. We weren’t the happiest family, and they argued a lot, but they always made sure that we had enough, my sister and I.

When I was in grade 3, I got transferred into this English intensive class, sorta like an AP English course. Classes in Vietnam are a little different, where students are assigned one classroom, and the teacher would come to teach them every class period instead of them walking around school and attending their classes. So we all have the same syllable, sit in the same spot, and see the same faces all year long, which really helps build community, since we’re just a bunch of kids put together in the same place for a whole year, and we sorta make friends that way, by being in the same class.

My AP English class is the same, but instead of being split up at the end of the school year, we would continue with one another throughout elementary school. And then we were again offered the same structure in middle school, with the same faces. I spent 7 years with these kids. And then 3 more years in high school being close friends with them, even though we split after middle school. Growing, watching them grow, seeing old and new faces come and go, and I never once understood that what we had was special. Well until it’s too late.

These kids and I spent 10 years of friendship together. Our whole childhood, our innocence, our youth, packed together in 4 classrooms until we couldn’t physically be there anymore. And I threw it all away, just on a whim when I got home from college on my freshman year. We had been planning a trip together, and some misunderstanding occurred, and I was trying so hard to explain my side of things, but I was just too tired to argue, so I left them behind. I left the family I spent 10 years building for myself, not realizing that this is what families do; that they argue until they are matured enough to fix their problem.

19-year-old me thought it wasn’t worth it to stay in touch anymore, just so that the 23-year-old that I am today still wakes up crying every time I see them in my dreams, back in that crooked and smelly classroom we spent 4 years together in middle school.

19-year-old me had the tools to talk to them and to figure things out yet refused to, just so that the 23-year-old me can’t even try to fix this problem because it was already long overdue, and he has spent too long a time in the US to even speak Vietnamese properly anymore.

19-year-old me walked away from the most magical thing he couldn’t even begin to comprehend, just so that his 23-year-old self can realize that it was love, pure, innocent, requited love.

19-year-old me was stupid, just so that his 23-year-old self can be smart enough to know what he had lost, and now has to live with this pain for the rest of his life.

19-year-old me lost the family he never realized he had, just so that his 23-year-old self can pour his heart out to strangers on the Internet.

I see the abyss. They wave at me and tell me that I’m a bad friend.