In the 6th grade, I was one of the more popular kids. I had many friends (boys and girls alike), and all was going well. Until -- something weird happened.

See, my best friend was Colleen Moore. She and I used to do almost everything together. Many of you may find it weird that I had a girl as my best friend, but we just seemed to click. We used to go to the mall, the movies, to friends houses, all together. People used to think that we were going to get married or something, and I kind of thought we might two. But then, all of a sudden she started fading away from being my friend.

This devastated me. I didn’t know what I was going to do without my best friend. I think that’s about when I started to pull away from everything. I felt that if Colleen wasn’t there to cheer me on, then why should I continue to play sports and such? I mean she’s the one that made them fun. I always had a fan when Colleen and I were still friends. She would religiously show up to all my games and be my biggest fan.

Without Colleen around, my life seemed void. Around then is when I noticed that while I played all those sports and was one of the best, things just didn’t seem to feel right any longer.

The best I have been able to come up with is the fact that while I was with Colleen, sports weren’t the only things we did. I used to go to her house and we’d chat, and even at times play with her dolls and games and other toys and such. The funny thing is that we NEVER did any of those things except chat at my house. I even remember playing dress-up more than once at Colleen’s.