This is a blog I have been intending to write for quite awhile, but I have avoided it because I didn’t want to sound really cheesy and sickly and sappy, but I am just going to bite the bullet and get on with it. If it makes you vomit, then I’m sorry.
Basically I want to say a massive thank you to my friends from my two years at Sixth Form. For one, I genuinely want to thank them for simply being my friends. When Sixth Form started, I wasn’t close friends with any of them, but they let me sneak my way in and I could not be more grateful.
Secondly, they helped me get through one of the weirdest and most difficult times of my life! After one term of being tic-free, the twitching started, and I obviously didn’t know what the heck was cracking off. I think the first of my friendies I told was my Hamster, and I don’t even remember how the rest of them found out or reacted or anything.
I guess it was a bit like, “Oh, Aisling’s twitching now. Cool. Coolcoolcool.” (Maybe without the community reference but I think it added something…) What I mean by all this is they clearly didn’t make the experience any more traumatic, and I don’t remember any moments of having to justify myself.
Of course, they may have doubted me (I have always been slightly gobby and hyper. This could have quite easily been just me making more noise just for the sake of it!), and I don’t really blame them I just appreciate that I never felt excluded. I had a whole team of rocks to support me over those years. I was insanely lucky.
As I start to think about starting university, I don’t think I could possibly find a group of friends that make me feel as comfortable as they do. Ok, I don’t want to sugarcoat our friendship – we are a massive group of girls and fallouts happen — but I loved being in a little group of rejects (or more commonly awkward turtles) where flaws were welcomed with a joke and a hug, everything was funny and we were who we were.
Yes, I was the one in the group with Tourette Syndrome, but it wasn’t my identity just as much as it wasn’t “The one with ASD” or “The one with anxiety” etc. (Ha ha, I was just going through what I could have called them all in my head and we are a bit odd. I’m glad we’ve learned how to function in the real world. ;) )
Of course, in the future we may all drift apart and only get reminded of our little group when we find the certificates from our anti-prom party, but to quote Wicked: “and so whatever way our stories end, I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend.” A massive thank you and huggle to them all.
Oh Aisling…. Its been an absolute privilege to be your friend! I hope you make lovely friends at uni and that they are understanding as you feel we have been! Love you! Xxxx