The Sun

She was in my cousin’s class. Short and shy, as I was. I saw her in the backyard and I knew she had a weird name. After the fourth grade I went to another school in another village, as now I had to attend what they call “Gymnasium”. There, we were classmates. I was sitting next to my best friend Sarah and pretty scared with this bunch of strangers in the classroom. I admired Sarah a lot. We had known each other since we were six. She lived 30m from my house and we spent all afternoons together. Sarah was so outgoing and pretty. I felt like her shadow. She nursed my personality somehow and took me with her to cool places. She talked to everyone and I was always around her. After some time I got used to the new school. Sarah and me had horrible grades in the fifth grade, but didn’t care too much about it. 

After long summer vacation of a very short German summer, I went to sixth grade. When I entered the classroom, Sarah was already sitting at our table. Next to her. Pale and blond, looking like a porcelain doll, she was sitting on my place. My chair. Next to my best friend. How did she get there? Had I missed something? I should have hated her, but I couldn't. She was too friendly. I realised things had changed. I sat next to whomever and spent the whole school year trying to figure out what to do without having Sarah leading me. I did good, actually. 

After a while I made new friends and Sarah was not my sun anymore. I got some other people on my sky now. Some moons and stars. Sarah’s sunshine was not that important anymore. One more year passed and Sarah switched again. She gave up on her and started to hang out with Ann, from the classroom next door. Ann was nice and shy. As all of Sarah’s friends were. Left aside, me and the girl who used to be my rival became friends. Both of us had grown in Sarah’s shadow. Both of us had found our own light. 

And what light she had found! Her laughter was the nicest thing ever and her friendly blueish eyes had the colour of a sunny winter morning. She had not only found her own light, but she had become the sun herself. As if she were covered in shining gold and all others around her were grey. Where she went, things were nice and friendly and fun. She was a magnet. More and more people gathered around her. Her house was always crowded with friends. She was the sun and all the others orbited around her. This short porcelain doll had become the most powerful planet in our galaxy. She has grown up and become a charming young woman. A tough woman. I have moved away. The atlantic ocean separates us, but I can still feel her strength. Like the sun, that has seen dinosaurs die out, kingdoms rise and fall, humans spread around the earth- like the sun- she will never stop shining.