When I was 11 I thought I had the whole world figured out. Yes, I thought this at 11. I was a bit full of myself as you can probably tell. I thought that I was smarter than everyone else which somehow made me better than everyone else. I was told that middle school was a time of change and I told myself then that I wouldn't change. Why change what's already perfect?

I thought I knew all that there was to know about the world. I thought that adults that told me I had so much left to learn about the world were crazy. I knew everything, so how would there be anything else left for me to learn? I thought I was ahead of the curve.

I guess in a way I was right. I knew everything about the world. What I didn't know was that wasn't due to my intelligence, but it was due to what I knew existed. Due to my young age, only what I knew existed, what I knew to be true, could exist in my world, my little bubble. Things and concepts I did not know of simply did not exist. Due to this, my bubble was very little. This also made it easy to know everything about what it contained. The bubble, however, could not follow these rules that I had made up for it (unintentionally, of course), forever.

As I grew, so did my bubble. My bubble became aware of the world that existed outside of what it was and it tried to enclose the world outside of it as well. At the time I didn't know that my bubble was just doing what was best for me because I thought I knew what was best for myself. I wasn't used to a big bubble and I wasn't about to find out what living in a big bubble would be like. I kept it as close as possible and refused to let it expand. Whenever it tried to expand, I would remind it that it could only be sure of what it knew. The unknown could hurt it and it shouldn't let itself get hurt. So I started acknowledging that an unknown existed. But, I tried to convince myself that I didn't want it to expand because there was no need for it to expand. The reality was that I didn't know what I would be able to do if I could no longer contain it.

Obviously, I could not keep the bubble contained forever. I could no longer grasp onto it and it expanded further and further to where I could no longer see its boundaries. New things entered my bubble, things I could have never imagined to have existed. These were horrifying things and even though they were inside my bubble, I refused to acknowledge them. I refused to acknowledge most of the new things that entered my bubble and I tried my best to remember the old boundaries that my bubble had had. I remained within these boundaries, hoping that if I stayed within that area that maybe my bubble would eventually revert back to those and make me feel safe again.

But my bubble grew tired of this. It was trying to teach me more and more about what was out there but I simply refused to acknowledge those things. It knew that the only way to teach me about the world around me was to stop protecting me from it completely, so my bubble popped. At first, I was scared. I still remained within the old boundaries of my bubble because of how safe and secure I felt there. Security was the only constant I had at that moment and I clung onto it for dear life.

But the things in that bubble did not care for that. They came closer and closer to me almost as if they were playing some sort of taunting game. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would get to my unprotected boundaries. So, I built myself new boundaries. I knew a bubble could easily pop, so I instead built walls. These walls were made of brick. The things could not penetrate the wall, though they tried and tried again. I felt safe again, but I was delusional.

The wall could not protect me for forever. Eventually, the things did break through the wall. Being face to face with them for the first time made me realize that only some were the enemy. Some were actually very friendly. I ran over to them for safety, but the unfriendly things were still pursuing me.

"They don't want to hurt you, you know," one of the friendlies told me. "They want you to acknowledge that they are real. Sometimes they cause trouble, but that's just a part of life. You cannot have friendlies without unfriendlies, you cannot have good without the bad."

I reached out to touch an unfriendly. As one hand went out to touch the unfriendly, another was squeezing the hand of the friendly. It was in that instant I knew my world would either completely crumble or become stronger than ever before. I moved my arm back. Was I willing to take that risk?

I knew that it wouldn't remain a choice for forever, that eventually it would no longer be a choice. Eventually, that decision would end up being made for me, so I decided to make it myself. I again reached out to the unfriendly. The unfriendly approached me and we made contact. I screamed. It was terrifying enough to know that they existed, but to actually come into contact with one. It was horrific. I felt myself giving into the horrors of the unfriendly.

But the friendly was not going to let it happen. It squeezed my hand. "Remember, I exist. Even when you encounter an unfriendly, even when it seems that it is winning, I will always be here to squeeze your hand. We will always be here to squeeze your hand." I squeezed its hand even harder. Eventually, the unfriendly gave up and walked away.

I've encountered many unfriendlies since then. Whenever I do, I always think of the friendlies that are always by my side. The unfriendlies may come and go, but the friendlies will always be there for me.

So this is a metaphor. I used the terms "friendlies" and "unfriendlies" to simplify things. Well, the entire metaphor is a simplification. I could say what exactly I meant by this, but I think that would defeat the purpose of my metaphor. I want to make people think by reading this and no single interpretation is wrong. The only wrong interpretation is no interpretation, because everything has meaning.