I was kind of popular…once. Before popularity really existed, I was popular. I was well-liked and celebrated by my peers, not for who I was trying to be, but for who I was.
Third grade.

I didn’t feel the need to be anyone different than myself. I was Abigail, and I was happy with that girl. My writing wasn’t generally dark or sad. Overall, I loved third grade. Sometimes I wonder if my entire life peaked that year, at eight years old, but I know that’s silly.

So, you’d wonder why I decided to completely remake myself into “Abigail 2.0: the cool kid” going into fourth grade. I wonder, too. Suddenly, I wasn’t “sweet little writer princess” anymore; I was “sassy class clown kid.” I think I was obnoxious, honestly, but I don’t think my classmates thought so. And if they were, I was too oblivious to know or care. It was me and this other boy–we were the loud, funny ones. We were unashamed. Unafraid. I had spunk.

So, I don’t know if everyone in my grade matured that summer, or if I just got ten times more obnoxious–because the same tricks that had gotten my classmates laughing in fourth grade didn’t make them so happy in fifth. I should’ve gotten the memo that nobody liked class clowns anymore. But I didn’t–I thought that nobody could just stop liking something in one summer.

Thus, I became the obnoxious one. I had my one or two years of being liked–fought over, even.

Somebody tell me. What is like to be so wanted that you’re fought over? It’s been too long. Refresh my memory.