As a child, I was always the extremely sociable and active kid. You know, the one that would go up to random people and introduce myself to try to make friends. I always ended up taking it to the point where people got annoyed with my constant talking and blabbering. I never had many friends and while I was slightly upset about it, I understood why, but it was difficult to just change my personality. That was before I reached kindergarten.

   I remember walking into my new classroom full of people I never met. As any child would be, I was nervous because I remember how I was made fun of in preschool (yes, it happened). The first few days I decided to keep my mouth shut so I wouldn't bother anyone. That's when a little girl in a light blue uniform shirt and khakki shorts decided to come up to me.

   I remember her saying, "Hi, I'm Mariah Douglas. Why are you over here by yourself?" I didn't really know how to respond because I thought that if I opened my mouth, I'd say something stupid. "I just am." is all I could come up with at the time. I remember her smiling. "What's your name?" She had asked. "I'm Sarah." Her smile widened and I recall her sitting in the empty seat next to me, pulling out a box of crayons and two pieces of paper. "Okay, Sarah. The teacher said it's coloring time so I want us to draw and color each other." I was a little hesitant, but did it anyway as to not upset her.

   We ended up laughing at each other's drawings and telling each other how they were actually not that bad. We became fast friends and that's where it all started, though in the whole year of kindergarten, I never once showed her my extremely talkative side.

   I entered first grade and felt awful. I hadn't seen any of my friends all summer, including Mariah. I remember walking through the classroom door and seeing her sitting at a desk, folding a piece of paper in half. I immediately sat next to her and poked her cheek. "Sarah!" I remember her exclaiming. She threw her arms around me and I awkwardly hugged back. We started talking again and it was like we never stopped where we left off in kindergarten. That's when I knew we would be tied to the hip for a long time.

   This happened all throughout elementary school. Even when we didn't have the same classes, we would find time to hang out because during first grade, I found out her grandmother lived down the street and that Mariah was over there a lot. After sixth grade, I heard that she would be going back with her parents in Keller. I was a little upset, but I knew I would still get to see her every once in a while. We texted back and forth and even skyped at some points. Everything was going smoothly.

   We hit a few bumps in the road during our seventh and eighth grade years. We had gone to Great Wolf Lodge for New Years and got into some drama. She ended up calling me the B word and I got extremely upset to the point where I was sobbing in the bathroom. She ended up coming in there later and apologizing repeatedly. She said she'll never do it again and I asked, "You promise?" I remember her holding my wrists and saying, "I promise." Her opinion mattered so much to me that every time we got into a fight, I would apologize regardless of whether it was my fault or not. I couldn't lose her. 

   When we were around nine years old, we went into my mother's closet to get clothes for a fashion show for my mom. We went into the closet and pulled everything that caught our eye. I remember Mariah pulling down a large box labeled "WD". I wasn't sure what it was, but when I looked inside, I realized it stood for "wedding dress". Mariah pulled it out of the box and held it up. "It's pretty!" she described it. After talking about the dress for ten minutes, I asked her "Do you think we'll still be friends by the time we both get married?" She scoffed and said "Of course we will! And when we get older, we'll be each other's bridesmaids of honor or whatever it is!" I nodded and put the dress back in the box. "Yeah, that sounds great." She laughed and sat down next to me as we looked for more clothes. "I promise we will."

   There was a time when she brought the same friend over and over again. Her name was D'Lena. When I texted Mariah, she always was with D'Lena. One day, while Mariah was down at her grandmother's house, I went down there crying. Mariah immediately shoved all of the other worrying people out of the way and asked me what's wrong. I told her that I promise I'll do anything if she didn't replace me as a best friend. I was constantly terrified that she would. All she did was smile and say, "Sarah. I can never replace you." and when I looked up at her, she had her hands clasped behind her back and she said, "I promise."

   By the time we were both around thirteen, we had become a bit more distant than we were. Yes, we still talked once in a while, but not as much. The rare times we saw each other, we'd have a blast and she'd tell me secrets that she hadn't even told her parents. That was a lot of trust put into me. As for what we did when we saw each other, if it was summer, we'd go to hurricane harbor. If it was winter, we'd go outside and play in the snow. If it was spring, we'd go to the park. If it was fall, we'd rake leaves outside and jump in them. There was always something to do and it was usually Mariah who suggested them. She was always the leader of our duo so she always convinced me to try new things that were usually dangerous and ended up in me getting hurt somehow. It was always like we had never stopped being friends.

   I'm fifteen now and I can't hang out with Mariah at all. It hurts, yes. Of course it does. I'll miss the fashion shows, our webshow where my brother would be forced by us to hold the camera, the little concerts we'd put on for her grandma where I'd play piano and she'd write lyrics and sing, the sleepovers which consisted of us being so loud that my mom would have to come in at two in the morning and tell us to go to sleep, the times where we'd put on the radio in my living room and we'd create dances together before performing them for my mom, the days where she'd come over in the mornings and jump up and down on my bed to wake me up, the days where she'd come over and when I asked her why, she'd just reply with "For food, like always." before going into my kitchen and ransacking the pantry.

   There's a lot of stuff I'll miss about her. She was my guide to life and she taught me how to take risks. She taught me how to be a better person and that if I want to get better at something, I have to try. She's the one that forced me to take up piano again and now I absolutely love playing it. This whole event of her passing has sparked something inside me. It makes me want to change. I plan to major in music after high school to remember the times where we'd dance together, sing, and play instruments together. I want to watch more webshows to compare them to our ideas when we tried to create one. There's so much I want to do because of her and there is so much that I have done because of her. Even now that she's passed, if someone asks who my greatest inspiration in life is, I will proudly say "Mariah Charmayne Douglas".