Take On The World

My name is Riley Matthews and welcome to my blog, Meeting My World! This blog will take you through my adventures in the world and give you pointers along the way! I am 13 years old, born on December 8th 2001 to my parents Cory and Topanga Matthews in New York City. I've grown up in New York all my life and learned to enjoy the city life and live to my fullest. In 1st Grade, I met my best friend Maya Hart, who is a year older than me. I quickly learned that this girl I had just be-friended at the age of 6 was 7 years old and had already lived through more than I ever will. Her father had adandoned her and her mother when she was just a little baby, and her mother on the verge of giving up, payed no attention to her daughter at all. Maya often found herself locked out of her house, sleeping outside, rarely getting food and crying herself to sleep every night, since she was 3 years old. I made it my goal and my wish to be able to greatly improve this little girl's life by holding her hand through everything that was to come her way. I promised to change her life forever and be the most positive impact on her life that she'd ever know. I quickly accomplished my goal and over the years I have stayed committed to staying by her side through thick and through thin. I saw her grow and it wasn't always good. She'd always show me the letters and gift boxes her father had sent her in the mail. He wrote that it wasn't her that made him leave them, but her mother who never told Maya the story. Then one day, I thought I had snapped my fingers and that little girl I knew who cried to me and was literally like a blond version of me, became someone I didn't think I knew for years and years yet to come. She became the opposite of me in every way you could think of. She started dressing in dark clothing and began to misbehave at school and take no ownership for her own mistakes. She laughed at those who failed worse than she did and acted like she was on top. But I knew her better and she acted this way because she really felt like she was down on the bottom. Little did I know, her father stopped sending her things and stopped showing her he cared. She was 8 years old and later found out that this was because he had new children and a new family and made no time for his daughter Maya described as "old." Feeling unloved and neglected, Maya started acting strange and in more violent behaviours than usual. I even found that she joined a street gang with a bunch of 13-15 year old kids and just one other boy who was a year younger than her. She was hanging around her new friends more than me, and I heard from her a lot less often than I usually did. After years and years of hearing the stories about how Maya and her "gang" friends stole things, stayed up late and vandalized stores, I had decided to set a new goal for myself. I was 10 years old and Maya was 11 and it was time to put an end to this nonsense she was participating in. I convinced her to quit the gang by the time she was 12 and already so rebellious and almost gothic, that she couldn't change her personality back to the girl I knew when I was only a 3rd Grade student with no common knowledge at all. Maya still knew the gang leader from her old gang, Gretchen was her name and they still create conversation in the subway sometimes. After watching Maya do what she wanted to do and playing by her own rules, I wished I could be that strong and I wanted to be just like her. She encouraged me to be like her and wanted to help me be the girl I wanted to be. As of today, we are 7th Grade girls who try our best to reach our full potential and it has been my goal to make the world my own. I found out that my father was my 7th Grade history teacher and realized what a year this would be. Looking back to the 1st Grade, is where I met my friend Farkle Minkus who had a crush on me weeks into the 1st Grade. I always pushed him away and adventually offered to be his friend and he accepted to be in my life any way he could. Over the years, he's been flirting with me and doing anything to persuade me to like him. He hasn't exactly gotten there, aside from one brief time when both Maya and I were begging to be his date to an award ceremony. He soon gained the same crush on my best friend, Maya and both of us gained our first thing we found in common for years. We both enjoyed bonding over Farkle's massive crush on us, as he claimed to love us both equally. At the beginning of this school year, we met a great new friend, Lucas Friar. Quickly I learned that he moved here from Austin, Texas and often goes back on the weekends to visit his old friends. The minute Maya pointed him out to me, my heart raced inside and I fell instantly in love with him. Maya being Maya, she made the first move and talked to him to show me how to do it when I get up the urge to talk to him myself. Maya knew I would never make the first move on my own, so she shoved me down the isle of the New York City subway, knowing I'd land right in his lap. "Hi" I said nervously. I wasn't expecting Maya to make that move so soon, and words just kept coming out of me whenever Lucas himself wasn't talking. The disappointment arised from me when an older lady asked for my seat and I had no choice but to give it to her. I was hyped up and excited for the first real moment in my life, before I realized I may have just lived the best thing that'll ever happen to me. Maya had a different thing in mind, and shoved me back down the isle again and to no surprise I landed right where I wanted to go. Well, sort of. I landed on the lady, and the guilty look on my face had no cost, as she handed me over to Lucas as the weight lifted off my shoulders. Ever since that day when he later walked into our history class, I realized he was not someone I'd meet only once and I was happy to see him again, realizing my first crush. I've had a crush on him since, but have had a hard time keeping it to myself, compared to Maya who keeps all her feelings inside. My father didn't approve of my first school-girl crush and embarrassed me several times in front of Lucas, Maya was unsure of what to do then, she could only sit, stare and hope it would have a happier ending than it did as soon as my father walked over and started talking gibberish. I have always wanted to make the world my own and see how different the world would be if it were mine. I'm learning that now and I am destined to find out what's going to happen for me as life carries on. Life is unpredictable, but that's what makes it so exciting. Enjoy my blog, and the life I'm living may not be too different from yours! Just remember, that you never know what's going to happen and no matter how hard you try, you can never really know until you get there!