Advanced Essay #1: Lucien Hearn

Advanced Essay:

In 2005 my mother and I moved from our spacious apartment in the thick of olde city, right under my grandmother, to a compact half-house in Woodlynne, a town bordering the well-known area of Collingswood. My house had a yard surrounding it on all sides, and dividing us from the neighbors was a wall, just thin enough for us to hear the conversations had just next door. I never listened, but the option was enough to make me feel like a spy.

I didn’t speak with anyone in my new neighborhood for the entire summer leading up to kindergarten. I did everything that I did then in a usual summer - go to the beach with my dad, visit my grandfather with my mom, etc. The entire time, I was anticipating what my school would be like. I lived a block away from it, and it was only kindergarten, but a change that big is enough to worry anyone. This was a new grade, how much different would it be? Would I be as smart as the other kids? Would I start getting challenging homework? My mind raced with questions, anxiety fuelling them the whole way.

This feeling was not one I expected to encounter multiple times throughout my life. My family- immediate and extended - is one that is constantly moving around, migrating from one place to another every year or two, waiting to settle down until further into their lives. My brother had changed schools every year in elementary and middle school, my mother moved around on a boat from continent to continent, sailing the seven seas, and my brother’s mom takes vacations a couple times a month to various places. It wasn’t until later that I realized this, for the time being I had thought that I moved around the same amount everyone else did. Granted, I didn’t move the extremity that my family did, but it was still enough to have an impact on me.

When I was younger, on days where my friends were busy I would watch TV shows, mostly sitcoms. It was something to pass the time, passively listening to the theme whenever a new episode started. Being young, I had few cares about how my life would be later down the line, never stopping to appreciate what I had, a very solid friend group who I envisioned myself with always.

Over the years, I had switched schools multiple times, and moved on from elementary into high school. I had long since moved away from my tight-knit group of friends from Woodlynne, and had been longing for another. Of course, there were many people in my schools that I had considered friends, and a few that had earned the title of “best friend”, but I had yet to discover another group like previous, mirroring the casts as seen on TV from my childhood. At first, I thought that acting like one of the characters would naturally lead me to this elusive group of friends - that didn’t work. Then I tried to talk to people I’d never spoken to or hung out with before - it seems there was a reason we didn’t talk much in the first place. And after trying and failing multiple times with other methods, I began to wonder if I’d ever truly fit in. I enjoyed the people around me - don’t get me wrong - but I never felt a strong connection to anyone, and I was just wandering through life, it felt like. I always envisioned people in high school to have cliques and groups that they slowly settled into, but it seemed that it wouldn’t be that simple.

In sophomore year, I joined the Cross Country team for no apparent reason other than to look better on college applications. I was speaking with the people on the team when we started talking about what we did in our free time

“I usually just listen to podcasts like Sleepycabin”

It’s something insignificant, no one aside from me would have noticed or cared, but I had never found another person who had liked or even known about something like that, and to me, this was very special. After having a long talk about all the ins and outs of the show, we started talking more, eventually leading to hanging out. To most people, finding someone else who shares an interest would be a nice surprise, but to me it felt like finding an old friend to talk to.

Having a group of people you consider close friends is a very special thing, and something to be cherished. You may not be able to hold the same group of friends throughout your whole life, but it’s important to hold onto that for as long as possible, appreciating the consistency of friends, enjoying the same old things you did last week.