Thoughts & Occurrences

5 Minutes

5 Minutes

Sometimes one person can come into your life for 5 minutes or less and you'll remember them forever, or at least, it happened to me. In 8th grade it seems all my supposed friends turned on; me even writing fake messages in my yearbook. It was even my best friend that turned on me and wrote in my yearbook "Do the world a favor and kill yourself. Ha Ha. Ha." That hurt me to the core. After all the time I spent with him and stood up for him he had the audacity to give my hell in 8th grade like all the other ingrates. Till this day I still try to figure out what I did to them to make them all hate me.

Twenty-five years later I was talking to my sister about what my back-stabbing best friend did to me knowing I was severely depressed and had no friends in the 8th grade. She suggested that I burn the book and forget all the bad memories in there. (My sister has a thing for burning negative i memories that are on paper, but she's not a pyromaniac. It is her way of destroying defective experiences.) She wanted me to let go of the painful recollections that I had incurred that year. I don't blame her, and what better way to do it then burned the infamous book of lies and loathing of me.

This sounded like a fantastic idea until I remembered something. During the last days of 8th grade this girl named Jamel, whom everybody liked; asked to see my yearbook. In my despair, I handed it to her not really caring anymore. Within five minutes she gave it back to me and smiled sincerely. I opened up the book to the page she had written expecting the worst and was shocked. She had written that I was a nice person and many other words of encouragement, putting hearts and flowers around her sentiments.

I looked at her and smiled forgetting my immense depression for a moment. She smiled back and nodded once at me. The thing about Jamel is I never even talked to her all through those 3 years of middle school. Not that I deliberately ignored her but, I just thought she was like the rest who were spiteful. The five minutes Jamel took to write that heartfelt statement reminded me that not everyone hates me.

Jamel is really the woman's real name. I mention her name because of her wonderful words she wrote in my yearbook that I will never forget. I believe she meant every word of it. If she ever reads this I hope she knows my gratitude I have for her in those five minutes of writing and I hope she is doing well in life. For that one good deed made my life a little bit more bearable for a moment.