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TREVOR BORGMAN
 
FRIENDSHIP
 
Growing up through school, it isn't uncommon to see cliques around the halls. It always seems that every friend group that you see goes through a very strict filtering process that weeds out all of the traits that make you unique, and leaves you with just one basic trait that you can all share. If you ask me, this is the reason behind why we often categorized each other as we grew up, because it's all we knew! That includes myself. For the longest time, I was a member of one of these cliques... simply because I didn't know any bctter at the time.

My childhood was defined by traveling sports. Football games every Saturday in the fall, basketball tournaments every weekend in the Winter, and baseball practices and tournaments four days a week from the beginning of the year to the end of my summer. This was the endless cycle that I called my life. As a result, it's no surprise that the teammates I had in these sports were who I called my closest friends. However, I never really hung out with thesc people outside of an occasional birthday party here or there. It's not like they were necessarily bad people, but I never really made a choice to be friends with some of them. It was more of who I felt like were supposed to be my friends since we all did the same sports. Long story short, this left a lot of time for me to be stuck at home with nothing to do. Due to this my thoughts were always kept to myself and I never really had a group of friends to connect with on a deeper level, which I didn't understand was such an important part of friendship until the end of my eighth grade year.

Towards the end of middle school, I ran track because everyonc else was doing it, and it was actually a ton of fun when we went to meets. One day, our track meet that was scheduled in Sedalia was cancelled last second due to protests going on in the area. With nothing to do, a few of the track athletes that I had never hung out with before, randomly asked me if I wanted to hang out wlth them after school. This came as a shock to me because these were all people who had nothing in common with not only mc, but with each other. Nonetheless, we were all starving so we decided to walk to KFC, but when I got my food, I wasn't able to eat because I was too busy laughing my lungs away! These people somehow understood my sense of humor more than my friends did. After eating, we all walked around town and visited our old elementary school playgrounds. Along the way, we just talked about anything and everything, and everyones' energy was just so addicting to be around... I never wanted the day to end.

After that night, our friendship only grew stronger and stronger. To this day we continue to hangout all the time! Despite any problems we have with each other, we always find a way to fix it because we all understand how important it is that we have one another. We broke the stereotypical belief of "friends falling apart during highschool," as we're preparing to graduate and don't plan on breaking off when we go our separate ways. Something that I really love about my friends is that we are very inclusive of others and hate labels. The whole idea of "cliques" is a thing of the past with us. We are such a diverse friend group with a variety of different races and cultures, GPA's, involvement in the school, levels of social interaction, and we all play different sports and are involved in many different activities! Our friend group is unique, and that is what makes us so special.

My friends have helped mc learn that it's okay to be myself. Before I met them, I not only was scared to be myself, but honestly didn't even know who that person was. With their never ending support and understanding of me, I was pushed to finally find that person, and learned to be the best version of myself I possibly could. If it weren't for them, I know for a fact that I wouldn't be who I am today. My experiences with all of these incredible individuals, that I am lucky to call my best friends, has shown me that friends don't have to be people who play the same sports as you, make the same grades as you, or come from the same background as you. A true group of friends not only has their differences, but they recognize these differences and celebrate them out of pride. Our differences are what makes us so flexible and overall the best friend group to have ever existed!

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