A Different Kind of Faith

Chapter II: Friends, Superbabies, and Butterflies

"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

This chapter is a little hard for me to write. My best friend, E., moved to Kentucky three years ago so her family could be with her Grandma who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I've know her for a extremely long toile and I still remember the first time meeting her.

I peek out behind my dad's leg as my five yer old self looks at the big truck that has pulled into the empty houses driveway. Another truck this time a moving truck is on the street with its door open. My dad says something along the lines of "let's go say hi to the new neighbors, huh? I think they have a little girl about your age. She could be nice and fun to play with. Let's go." We walked diagonally down the street of our block to a brick, single floor, house, on the left side of the street. A bald man is loading things out of the ram truck and spots my dad. My dad walks up to him and they introduce themselves and me. Staying quite I poke my head of bouncy pigtails and blond hair out, once again from the back of my dad. A little girl a little taller than me but apparently younger by a month peeks around similarly from the trucks wheel. This is E.
Over the months and years our friend ship evolved with sleepovers, campfires, ghost-in-the-graveyard, dress up, school, and most of all playing pretend. A normal play date with E. and generally her younger brother, S. went a little like this.
I walk over to her house, (over the years she moved to a house, still on our street, white and two story, but on the right only a house over from us), knock on her door to see if they can hang out, get a warm welcome from their parents, who are pretty much my second parents. More than half the time they were open and we all went outside and played pretend. The first question is what should we pretend. I was usually the one to decide what to do because E. was notorious for saying "I don't care, whatever you want to do." Uh, E. sometimes you're to nice. S. However did know what he wanted to do, and that was play super babies. Super babies, one of the classics, was where each of us was a baby that had superpowers. Pretty simply and surprisingly fun. Unless you play it. Every. Single. Time. As we grew older my stories to play were more elaborate such as Pokemon (we were each a Pokemon with its corresponding powers and such), chef (E. And I used our outdoor resources to make probably highly poisonous food and force my mom to fake eat it), and something else where we each had an element and powers that used our elements as sources. I was earth, E. was water, and the boys fought of fire, because apparently air is lame. Half the time it took longer to think of an idea of what to play than actually playing it.
Sometimes tensions got high on what we should play and I always ended up having to bring S. Back from his pouting sessions and convincing him that we would play whatever he wanted. Which ended up being super babies, again. S. Wasn't always good at the games we played such as tag or ghost-in-the-graveyard and he would say that he wasn't good at anything so I guess that's where I get my motivational persuasive skills (yea apparently that's what I m good at according to my friends).
So in the end when E. And her brother had to leave, I was devistated. My only true friends were leaving. We devised a plan to send letters back and forth. I was bookworm and E. Was Kittykat. S. Felt that he was being left out so his nickname became S.A.S.H., super awesome super hero. Anyone who has had a friend move knows how this is lick having an iron poker jabbed into your heart.

Enough of that, I'd like to tell you about one of the funniest, toughest, deals-with-tons-of crap-in-a-good-way, coolest person I have ever met. I shall use her wattpad name so you can check her stuff out. Presenting: Phangirl16 or whatwillsaveus. For the ease of typing I shall call her Ash, her nickname and because it is an epic nickname. The first time or series of times I met her was when another friend and I thought she was cool and funny so we decided to try and become friends with her, if she would let us. To our deilite she was even awsome-er than she seemed. I'd like to say we became pretty close nit, or at least in my opinion. We have our fair share of inside jokes and good laughs, but the more we got to know each other, the more things we learned. Turns out that ash has gone through some serious stuff. Cutting, depression, and insomnia. Most people who go through this give up. Not ash though. She has a rule, she has to make someone smile to go to bed happy, and, as she told me, used to be pretty darn hard. In this way she is on my hero list, a later chapter. In one of her books she explains how some people don't know how to help her or someone going through the same things. Talk. Just talk to her. In this way our friendship has evolved into something more than just saying hey in between passing periods. Some people fantasize that people who cut or have depression are "emo" or hate everything and they show this all the time. While this may be the case sometimes, it doesn't apply to everyone. For example, they may seem like one of the happiest people on the outside, but they pray that they will die the next day.

I'd like to tell you about two projects that are close to me, the bracelet project and the butterfly project. Both have the sameish goals but go about it different ways. The bracelet project is where people with struggles such as eating disorders or depression wear bracelets that have corresponding colors.
Here's a list:

The Bracelet Project.
Each disorder has a colour that corresponds to it.

Schizophrenia is Gold

Bipolar/mood disorder is Silver

Anorexia is Red.

Bulimia is Purple.

EDNOS is Pink.

Depression is blue.

Self harm is Orange or Black.

Fasting at the time is Green.

Suicidal is Yellow.

Overweight/Obese is Turquoise.

Anxiety/Panic disorder/OCD is Teal.

The Bracelet is supposed to have beads.

Adding 1 white bead means you're trying to recover. If your bracelet is half of the colour of your disorder, and half white it means you're in recovery. You can also make the strand the main disorder you have then add beads to your lesser disorders, or if you have EDNOS, if you have more anorexic or bulimic tendencies then you can add a red or purple bead. This is 100% your bracelet so feel free to customize your bracelet any way you feel is perfect to you.

If you see a person in public wearing one, you are supposed to make eye contact and point to your bracelet. If she or he nods then you know they are part of the bracelet project.

Spread awareness about the bracelet project!
I'm sure there are all sorts of people who have different colors meaning different things but this list is the one I use.
The second project is the butterfly project. This project can be changed up if you'd rather not have a butterfly on your arm instead you could have a quote or a different picture. The butterfly project is basically a way for people who struggle with self harm to keep their hands busy. The deal is you draw a butterfly on your skin (ink poisoning I know) and you have to wait for it to fade away before you can continue self harm. I've been told by many a mom to stop drawing on myself, and though I don't self harm, I do it in honor of those people who do. Below is a quote for people who are suicidal. I don't mean to be an advertisement but another wattpad book if you struggle with deppresion, self harm, and suicidal tendencies I recommend paper butterflies by faded smile.

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first; when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.

Paramahansa Yogananda