A Life-Changing Moment in the Denver Airport Anonymous

I was sitting with my teammates in the Denver airport after yet another trip to Boulder, Colorado for a running camp. The week had been successful, and most of my memories made on the trip were good ones. There were, however, exceptions. At one point while we were staying in my coach’s cabin in Estes Park, I was as happy as every other kid around me. I was smiling and listening to the conversation, laughing at all the jokes told, and even pitching in my own two cents every once in awhile. Almost as soon as I felt joy, however, my heart and mind snapped into a state of confusion. Before I could try to hide from the failed joke I had just told, one of my closest friends snapped towards me and jokingly told me to “shut up.”

To any other teenager, this would have been just another silly joke. For me, however, I had been living the first sixteen years of my life as an over-analyst, and consequently I blew it out of proportion. What if he really means it? What if he isn’t really my friend? The past year at my school had not been any different. After spending all of freshman year trying to find a new best friend, I thought sophomore year would give me a chance to really show who I was. I was wrong. I watched the few friends I had made...