All I Would Ever Need

       I had always felt like a misfit in school.  My friends, although good and true friends, were not in the crowd of popular kids in school.  Besides, I was sure I was funny looking.  I just didn't fit the mold. Parading constantly before my eyes was "the fun group" - the popular kids - always laughing and whispering, never sad or depressed, skipping their way through school, the best of friends.  Teachers loved them, boys loved them, the whole school loved them.  I worshipped them and wanted to be just like them.  I dreamed of the day that they would accept me.

       My dream came true when I turned fourteen and I tried out for the cheerleading squad.  To my surprise, I was chosen.  Almost instantly, I was thrust into the "in crowd." I felt like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon.  I changed my hair and the way I dressed.  Everyone thought the change in me was fantastic - new clothes, a new group of friends and a new outlook on life.

       Almost overnight, the whole school knew who I was, or at least they knew my name.  There were parties and sleepovers, and of course, cheering at the games.  I was   finally one of the popular kids.  Everyone I had hoped to know, I knew.  Everything I had wanted to be, I was.

       Something strange was happening to me, however. The more I was included with the "in crowd," the more confused I   became.  In reality, these people were far from perfect.  They talked behind each other's backs while they pretended to be best friends.  They rarely had a truly good time but smiled and faked it. They cared about what I was wearing and who I was seen with.  But they didn't care about who I was, what I believed in, what my dreams were or what made me who I was.  It was a shock to see them as they really were, instead of as I had "thought" they were.

       I began to feel a huge sense of loss and disappointment.  But worst of all, I realized that I was becoming just like them, and I didn't like what was happening at all.  I had to get my life back in order. I concentrated first on finding out who my real friends were - the ones who listened and who really cared about me.  They were the only ones who really mattered. I stayed with cheerleading because I really enjoyed it.  But I stopped hanging around with only the popular kids, and I widened my circle of friends.  I found out that my real friends had never left me.  They were simply waiting for me to come to my senses.  I finally realized that my original friends were all I would ever need.

       by Kerri Warren

      from Chicken Soup for the Kid's Soul

      Copyright 1998 by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Hansen and Irene Dunlap

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