I think I sort of convinced my best friend to enroll back into school this September. He dropped out in January and completely cut contact from everyone since. I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier—but I went to his house today to see how he was doing. I felt really bad for not coming earlier and I apologized for that, but he insisted that what happened was nobodies fault but his own; he said he felt like he wasn’t deserving of friends like me because whenever I would text him or anybody else would text him, he wouldn’t reply at all.

He’s in a really bad position right now but I know that he can get through it. Even though his mom and step dad haven’t spoken to him in months and have completely neglected him, he still has a lot of friends who care about him. He’s been having a lot of dental and vision health problems, but he can’t do anything about them because his parents don’t even care. I believe I found a solution though. There are a few free dental services (such as examinations, fillings, cleaning, extractions, etc.) in clinics around Toronto, and the only catch is that he has to bring documentation to prove that he’s eligible (he just has to be under the age of 18, which he is.) to get the appointment. I told him to cut down on sodas and to brush his teeth three times a day for now.

I also asked him if he was going to enroll back into school and he said that he wanted to, but he  doesn’t believe he’s ready for it yet as he’s afraid of the shit that the other students will give him. I told him to maybe try and call the social worker from school that was supervising him (but apparently she gave up because school was over) and ask about how he can enroll back into school and catch up with his classes. I asked him what classes he was good at and what he was generally good at doing—skill and experience wise.  He’s been out of school so long that he forgot his grades from previous years. But he did tell me that he’s gotten better at cooking, so I suggested that maybe he should aim towards that path as a career and take classes that have to do with becoming a chef or just cooking/food in general. I also gave him the idea that maybe he can search for a part-time or full-time (if he isn’t going to go back to school) job as a cook for a restaurant—he said this sounded like a good idea and that maybe he could work at a Chinese restaurant since he’s Chinese and he can ask some other people to hook him up with a job at Pacific Mall or Denison Mall.

We pretty much sat on his porch steps for five hours straight, catching up and also pretty much reminiscing times from when we were younger—when we were in fourth to ninth grade. 

We talked about his situation for like two hours and spent the other three hours talking about stories of things we did when we were growing up. It brought back so many memories and he actually laughed a lot. He said it was the most he laughed in the longest time ever and I know it was true because he’d always be the laughing type and I haven’t seen him laugh so hard until today. We talked about people from school and how a lot of people we went to elementary school with only cared about impressing others and wasting money on luxuries. He said that he regrets being that type of person before—someone who spent a ton of money on clothing, accessories, etc. There was also something else that he said, which was that he understands how I felt long ago when I was sort of in his situation—when I was just in a really bad place and couldn’t afford the shit others could. There used to be times when I’d spend money I saved up to do things with him and my other friends and he said that he can relate to that now because he doesn’t get money from anywhere either. We were really similar before, but now we’re extremely similar. There’s also something that he said said, which I believe is necessary to share with you guys now. We were talking about how it would have been much better if we went to a school where there were other kids who came from families like ours. When he was younger, his parents would always tell him to stop hanging out with me and our friends at that time, and to start chilling with the other kids who were more “proper” and came from “good” families (pretty much the East Asian people; he would chill with us, the South Asians), because we were “bad” people. He then proceeded to say “Why would I want to chill with people that I don’t feel comfortable with? I feel much more comfortable with the people I can relate to.”

We talked about so much more but I can’t put everything into words.

By the time I had to go home, he thanked me for coming by and talking to him—and for being a good friend. It relieved him from a lot of stress and he said he felt more relaxed and motivated to get his life back together. I also felt really good by the end of it. It was one of the best talks ever.

I’m going to keep in touch with him and see how things are going to go with school. We also might play ball on Saturday with the rest of the guys—who he hasn’t seen in MONTHS, but he also said he might feel a bit uncomfortable because most of those guys aren’t the type who would understand how he feels and what he’s going through. But I’ll be there.