A lengthy little story about how I almost let the "tribes" get the best of me.

First and foremost, I want to apologize for how long this post is, but I felt it necessary in order to convey my entire high school story. I had two very different high school experiences, for reasons that will come out as this post progresses. Since the first one leads to the second, and for the sake of chronological order, let’s start with that one first.

I grew up in Marysville and went to Cascade Elementary. At the time, depending on which side of town and which elementary school you went to, once you were done with 5th grade you would either go to Cedarcrest Middle School for grades 6-9, or would go to the Marysville Middle School for grades 6 and 7, and the Marysville Junior High School for 8 and 9. At the beginning of 5th grade, my family moved to the other side of town. Unfortunately, that meant that not only would I be leaving all of my friends for that year, but I wouldn’t be going to Cedarcrest with them and wouldn’t be meeting up in school with them again until high school. At the time, I was devastated, but once I got adjusted and made new friends I was okay. I kept in touch with those I was close to, and looked forward to seeing everyone again in high school. Plus, I looked at it as an added bonus that once we reached high school, I would know everyone there.

Knowing everyone wasn’t as great as I thought it would be.
As Emily White describes in her essay, “The popular kids…dress overwhelmingly in the ubiquitous trendy brand Abercrombie & Fitch. They sport the logo on T-shirts, pants, bags, baseball hats.” (18) The popular kids not only wore Abercrombie, but all of the more “expensive” brands. They always had to be up-to-date with the latest fashion trends, as well as the latest gossip. Most of them had money, and the “unpopular” kids feared them like they feared the plague. Unfortunately, most of the people I was close with in middle school fell into this category. The kids I grew up with, on the other hand, ended up turning in to all kinds of different people. Some were “popular” and some, not so much. I didn’t care. I had grown up with these people, and they were my friends. I never labeled myself in any social category, because I didn’t truly fit in with any of them. I wanted to be friends with the people that I liked, and I was, for better or for worse.

Emily described how “some days messengers would travel from tribe to tribe, proving that webs can be formed even if they are fragile and fleeting.” (19) She talks of how the “natural helpers” would go from table to table collecting pennies for their cause, and how the “lonely kids are being addressed” (19) and how the “computer geeks looked up at (them) as if they are angels.” (19) This was me. In class, I would seek out the shy, chubby girl that never talked to anyone and ask her to be my partner when we were doing group work. I would smile and wave at the computer geeks when they didn’t look like they were having a great day. Not because I was trying to make fun or mock them, but because I genuinely didn’t want them to feel like they went unnoticed and that no one cared. I wanted to feel like no matter what was going on that was bringing them down, at least they could have me to think back on and say how maybe I made their bad days a little brighter. My “popular” friends didn’t like this very much, but most of them were a grade ahead of me, so I would always try and hide a lot of it from them since we didn't have many classes together.

I was successful in playing Switzerland to the tribes until my junior year. There was this one girl, and nobody liked her. I mean, nobody would give her the time of day, so she always kept to herself because she knew it. It had been this way for years. Being the way I was, I went out of my way to be nice and always say hello to her. I’d always ask how her weekend was, comment on her new haircut, and be her partner in group assignments. Well, one day, it was her birthday. I knew her homelife wasn't good and that her parents had very little money, so I wanted to try and do something special for her. I came to school with a gift for her, a book that she always talked about. She told me how she loved it so much that she would always borrow it from the library until they'd make her return it, only to check it out again the next week. This set my “friends” over the edge. It made the girl so happy – this random act of simple kindness. But to my friends, I had abandoned them. I had crossed over to the other side, and they made my life a living hell because of it.

I tried to deal as best as I could, and slowly started to distance myself from them. All of this came to a head again when my aunt was planning a surprise Sweet 16 party for my birthday. She had gotten all of the numbers out of my cell phone and called all my friends to invite them. When she called my “best” friend, she told my aunt that she didn’t know me, she’d never talked to me, her friends didn’t know me and that I might as well be dead to them. Ah, the scorn of the popular girl at its best. This was one of the most defining moments of my life. This was when I realized how absolutely ridiculous this whole situation was. I was nice to people, and I was looked down on for it. I was trying to make people's lives better, only for them to make mine worse. This was when I realized how, like real tribes, the tribes of the high school would stick together, no matter what, until the bitter end.

I flat-out refused to go back to school and my parents ended up transferring me to Lakewood High School near Arlington the following week. It was most definitely a culture shock. The school had 1/10 the number of students that Marysville did, and the campus was tiny. All the students seemed to know each other. Most of them were “Lakewood Lifers,” having grown up and gone there together since kindergarten or even preschool. I don’t know how many of you have seen the Twilight movie, but it was almost like that (without all the vampires, of course) on my first day. I was the new girl, and everyone knew me because of it. They all knew my name, as if there was some announcement the day before to let them all know I was coming. They all went out of their way to get to know me, and they all wanted to be my friend. There were no more “tribes.” The “popular” kids were popular because they were outgoing and involved and nice to everyone. They were popular not for their money or looks or the clothes they wore, but for something more important – dare I say, their personalities. Everyone there was popular in their own right. The band kids were friends with the jocks, and they’d all go to Denny’s after watching their drama friends act in the school play on Friday night. Lakewood was an entirely different world. Sure, it had its share of drama, but that is human nature. Lakewood was not full of separate, conflicting tribes, but of one tribe. One tribe of students that supported each other and got along. One tribe where everyone could fit in, and no one was an outsider. Lakewood was the way high school should be for everyone. And I loved every minute of it.