Monday, September 29, 2014

i can't fix it and it hurts like hell

Lily has always been a popular kid. She has lots of friends but that said, she doesn't have a best friend. She is bubbly, smart, friendly and very very outgoing. She is also very very smart. Yes, I know I mentioned it already but it deserves a second go around. She is in classes above her grade level so the kids are older and more mature than her. The maturity difference is HUGE. She is mature but obviously she isn't going to be as mature as kids 2 years older than her. At swimming she swims with kids older than her In everything she does she is surrounded by older kids. She gets on with them just fine but when it comes to parties or sleep overs or getties she is left out.

Yesterday we went over to a friends house. When we got back she saw on Instagram that one of her close friends had had some swimteam friends over. She thought she was in that that inner sanctum. She was left out. AGAIN. She pretended she wasn't hurt.

I knew better, after I put her to bed I made a stealth attack about 20 minutes later and found her quietly crying. Oh MY WORD. break. my. heart. and. rip. it. out.

We talked it through. She says she just wants to know what it is like to have a friend. She doesn't like living here cos everyone speaks Spanish as their first language and we don't. Truth be told, I don't like it either for that reason. It makes it hard to makes friends. We don't share customs with Hispanics. My heart breaks for her. She wants so badly to move somewhere else. I can't tell her I do too. That won't help anything although I think she knows I want to live near my family.

I told her her school is very small and once she gets to high school a whole new world will open up for her. But until then I have a kid who doesn't have a friend to call her own and there is no way of knowing that she will get one in high school cos those kids will already have friends.

THIS SUCKS.

Ideas welcome.

5 comments:

  1. I felt like that at her age. I was shunted off to school and left entirely on my own. I hated it...only made one friend in the whole of the six years.Because of my sexuality I was bullied and spat at all of the time.I ran away a couple of times...nobody seemed to be aware of my loneliness, or appear to give a hoot.
    Lilly has you, aware of her feelings...she is lucky.
    The upside for me was that I learnt to survive and become an independent thinker..As I sit here today ,whilst the experience was hurtful at the time ...I survived it and am now happy with my lot.col.xx

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  2. Moving doesn't change a thing. We've moved and Kerri still has a hard time making friends and is constantly left out. I am so very sad for our girls. The only idea I can offer is to have Lily invite friends to her house....we have found that having small play dates, tea parties, etc have been easier and Kerri and the girl(s) can bond over a craft project (in her case it was rainbow loom bracelets).

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  3. That is a tough one.........kids can be so hurtful without knowing it. She knows you have her back & that's important.

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  4. I have no ideas, only sympathy. I went through this, I don't think I ever had a best friend. I have got some very good friends now, though and even if we rarely keep in touch I can trust them totally and I feel lucky to know them.
    Now I just believe in being true to myself, but it's not that easy when you are at school. Sorry I can't help, but leaving school was the best thing that happened to me.

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  5. I did read this Dawn. Our girls are so, so similar. My heart breaks for Lily. Bri has found a great friend in class this year, but she is leaving soon. It just stinks.

    And I so get the living in Miami thing. That is a huge reason my parents uprooted my family when I was 13 and moved away. We had to start all over again. At the time, I thought my life was over. I wasn't really happy where I was living but I wasn't happy in the new place either. It was tough. But in the end, it was the best thing to happen. I wish you all could move somewhere and start fresh. Lily is a tough girl - she'll get through this.

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