Niceness

...seems to be something that is severely lacking in at least 75% of people my age. No, I'm not talking about going "awwww babes, I love you" to your friends every few minutes just to try and confirm that they love you back (which, it seems, they never do). I mean actual, genuine niceness. The sort of niceness that occurs because one person genuinely cares about another, not the sort of niceness that occurs when one person genuinely wants to get another drunk - and therefore lovingly gives away their very last 'supply' of alcohol for the night.

I'm not even talking about the sort of niceness that occured during a food technology lesson I was in last week, when a packet of cigarettes fell from a girl's cardigan pocket (without her realising, clearly concerned about being caught in school...) and the boy next to her (her 'friend') told her in a ridiculously cautious whisper told her that she'd dropped 'something'. The look on his face was priceless, it was as if he was saving her life by telling her in such a careful manner.

I don't think niceness even applies to situations during which one girl will be in tears and being consoled by her friend, when another girl (probably a randomer who vaguely knows her) will ask what's wrong. To be honest, during most occurances of this, the random girl being 'caring' mostly just wants some gossip.

No, I'm talking about real niceness. I've found recently that this mostly comes from adults, or at least people older than me. Having always been one of the oldest in the year (September 18th birthday), I have literally always been the oldest in my friendship groups - which is quite a bizarre thing. I think it's tougher being the older one, particularly as I'm both the oldest friend and the oldest sibling. You seem to experience things before others, often without realising, and it causes unnecessary friction. It's hard because as I grew up and matured, some (and I do mean only some) of my friends stayed as they were, and started to find problems with me because I was no longer interested in doing some of the things I used to enjoy. To put it bluntly: they didn't like who I became.

I found myself in almost a role reversal situation regarding this earlier this year. A friend of mine suddenly wanted to branch out, try new things and meet new people. All of which is fine, but my friend seemed to suddenly forget about the people experiencing this change too. And, if you read this (and realise it's about you), I want you to know that I don't blame you. I don't blame anybody. There's no point, everything happens for a reason and I get it now, I understand...

It was in the midst of this that I discovered what real kindness is. Real kindness is your form tutor spending over two hours afterschool talking to you and giving you a fresh perspective on things while you cry and wonder why things are so rubbish. Real kindness is your headteacher inviting you to his office to congratulate and thank you on being such a good pupil. Real kindness is a girl you barely know yet know well enough telling you that things will be OK.

Now it's my turn. I've begun writing thank you letters for each of my teachers for when I leave in two weeks. I wrote the first on Saturday night and was working on it until the early hours of the morning. Why? Because the person I wrote it for deserves to know just how thankful I am. I used to get caught up in the pathetic, bitchy nature of high school, I still do to some extent (hey, I'm not saying I'm perfect...), but I'm over the hatred now. Two weeks is a short space of time to make up for five years of confusion, tears, laughter and memories, but I'm not going to waste any of it with people who wouldn't waste their time for me.

I also found a book today while looking through the travel section in a bookshop. The cover was very different to how I'd have imagined it to be but the title and publisher instantly caught my eye. When I was little, we got a French for Kids book free in a pack of breakfast cereals. At the time I probably didn't even know what 'French' really meant but the books fascinated me, and I've read it cover-to-cover many times. A year or two ago, I was rooting through the piles of discarded books at my Grandma's house. My cousin's family often take any books they've definitely finished with down there, and my family are pretty much free to take anything we think we'll like. One book particularly caught my eye: Italian for Kids. Same cover design, same publisher. When I got home, I googled the book series to find out which others there were. I'd had absolutely no idea that an Italian version existed, so it excited me to think there were more. I found that there was a Spanish version too. This afternoon, I was in WH Smiths looking through the travel books (it's a habit I have, I don't normally buy anything but I love to just browse), when I found one called Spanish for Kids. the front cover was a lot different to the other two that I already had but the inside of the book matched the others. Anyway, I bought the book. I probably won't ever need to use it, as my Spanish is already more advanced than the vocab in the book, but I felt the need to make it a matching set. Who knows, maybe I would actually use them all if/when I have children in the future?

Today was a Bank Holiday so we've all (and by 'all', I mean my family) been off work/school, but we're all back tomorrow and it really is time to make these last two weeks count :)

Besos ♥
Rachel