10/05/2024
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠
╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮
For almost all of Junior High School, I didn't study in a traditional school.
Actually, I originally planned to, but the pandemic happened. We all know how it goes; lying in wait in the comfort of our homes, which slowly became less comfortable as time ticked away—weeks turned to months and to more than one year. And since face-to-face classes were put on an awfully long halt as a cautionary measure against the pandemic, schools resorted to either blended learning or a completely online setup.
My mom asked my sisters and I if we'd be willing to give homeschooling a shot.
Never did I imagine homeschooling to be a part of my life. I mean, I know someone who was homeschooled, but I never really knew about what they did there. All I knew was that it's not the same setup as a traditional school.
I remember there was a bit of convincing—or was it just me being okay with entertaining the idea of homeschool at my own pace...? In any case, soon enough, I told my mom that I was down to try it out. My sisters did too.
You could say I'm something of a last (wo)man standing, if we were to dramatize it. But, to put it simply, after their first or second year being homeschooled, my sisters decided that it just wasn't for them. I, on the other hand, chose to finish junior high there.
It was far from smooth-sailing, though; aside from the struggling-to-keep-up-with-academics part, there was also the making friends part.
I met my classmates and adviser in a Zoom meeting held around July (we had weekly online classes). The entire time, I was extremely timid, hesitant. I wanted to strike up a conversation with someone, anyone, in the chat box—but the messages kept coming, and at that time online meetings were still foreign to me and thus were bewildering and overwhelming. So I pretty much just gave up. Then I started counting the days that went by where my classmates were strangers to me—perhaps acquaintances, after everyone's introductions on the first day. I remember counting two weeks. That had to be a new record for me, I think.
It felt lonely.
—
Flash forward to the present day: the longest I've been able to keep a friend group or stay in one is more than three years, and who would’ve thought the people that make up this friend group would mostly come from that same class where I was mostly sure I wouldn’t be able to forge deep connections with?
There's just one, teeny tiny problem, though (a grave understatement): we all live miles away from each other.
Granted, since they kind of count as “online friends” since we met each other that way, we remain in touch by talking to each other daily, whether it be texting or voice chatting—but we all agree that meeting face-to-face is always fun.
Sadly, there’s always stuff we have to consider when planning a meet-up. (Yes, they should ALWAYS be planned.) Usually, we decide on a date, time, and place a month before, because we take into account everyone's free time, when they can go, and if their parents would allow them. We can never do a spontaneous meet-up.
It's a pretty lengthy process.
But hey, I’d say it pays off every time; the planning, the waiting, the number of “I miss you guys already”s and “I can't wait”s and countdowns—we’d never not have a fun day around each other when the day finally came.
At the end of every meet-up, a few days later—or even the next day—we’d find ourselves sending any variation of a certain question:
“Who wants to call?”
“Who’s down to vc?”
“Vc anyone?”
“Vc?”
And then we're back to the “I miss you guys,” and thinking about planning yet another meet-up in at least three months.
Despite all of the waiting and the long distances, though, I’m honestly just glad that we still chose to stay close even though we're all in different schools now. Just goes to show that they value this friend group as much as I do. And that's—I think it's nice to think about.
╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯
✒️: Anika Thea B. Robrigado
🖌️: Anika Thea B. Robrigado
