Do you ever think back to a moment in your life, a pivotal, defining moment, that changed the trajectory and course of your life? I often think back to a time early in middle school where I had to make the seemingly innocuous decision of where to sit at lunch. The decision came down to two tables each filled with a unique set of girls.

There were only so many seats at each table so the two tables in question couldn’t merge to create one big table of inclusivity. It wasn’t like the long benched tables of elementary school where everybody sat at the same place, the lunch monitor stomping on any illicit lunch box trades before they could even take place. So I had to make a decision; continue to sit with the more quiet girls, the overtly kind, polite girls who said (and I’m sure still say to this day) oh my gosh instead of oh my god, the ones who listened to Christian radio music; or sit with the other girls, the ones that laughed too loud, listened to Destiny’s Child, and were members of the “bra club” that banded (ha) together one day while changing for P.E. class. Being the loud and obnoxious, wannabe cool pre-teen that I was, and still sort of am today, I went with the latter group. As such, it changed the trajectory of my life in ways that have only become apparent recently as I find myself rounding the bases to turning 30.

At first I tried to split my time between the two tables. That was quickly met with jest from the new group, “Look who decided to sit with us today!” and quiet looks of disdain from the old one. Or maybe there was nothing. Maybe this was thought up by my inflated sense of self worth. In actuality, I’m sure they were probably relieved, even happy to see me go.

As time went on, my new lunch table-mates became my closets friends as we grew up together. Even when we went off to college we stayed in touch for several years after and some to this very day. But I can’t help but often think of how different my friendships would have been had I stayed at the table with the soft spoken, quiet, overtly kind girls. I am after all, a firm believer that you are the company you keep. If you show me your friends, I’ll show you your future. I probably wouldn’t have started drinking in high school, pulling what I like to call “confusion” on our parents where we would tell them, “I’m staying at X’s house,” where X was different for each of us, praying that our parents wouldn’t follow up with the other parents to check if we actually were where we said we were so that we could go to a house a few towns over in a secluded area that was lived in by a couple recent Tigard High grads. We would party, drink cheap liquor, pass out, and pull our shit together the next morning in time for that weekend’s unlucky one to drive us all back home. Maybe I wouldn’t have been ballsy enough to smoke a joint for the first time in my backyard with my parents’ bedroom window right above us. Maybe I wouldn’t have been taught how to properly take a bong rip before getting sent off to college by one of the girls’ brothers who made us take rip after rip until we had mastered it. I remember him saying, “Everyone will be impressed when you get to college and already know how to use a bong without looking like a rookie,” or something like that. I was obviously obliterated by then. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone crazy that first year of college, drinking and smoking everything and anything I could get my hands on, buying new clothes for every Friday and Saturday night, barely skating by in my classes, sleeping around because it was college and why not. Maybe my hero’s wouldn’t be Chelsea Handler and Amy Schumer. Maybe the phrase, “I’m here for a good time, not a long time,” wouldn’t resonate with me so deeply.

Now, this isn’t to say I blame anything I ever did on the friends I grew up with. I don’t. There’s no excuse for bad behavior and I hold myself fully responsible for my actions. I just can’t help but think that maybe things would have been different had I ran with a different crowd. It’s hard to say. The time has passed and the only experiences I have are the ones that happened. I guess if I could go back, I’d probably do things differently. Maybe I would have ended up with a more fiercely loyal bunch. Maybe I would have ended up with a group of friends I could trust, friends I could count on, friends who wouldn’t leave me in my darkest hours at the height of my rapid descent into madness. Or maybe it wouldn’t have mattered at all. Maybe the only people you can ever truly trust are your family. Or maybe its me and I’m just not meant to have deep, meaningful friendships with a group of women where you peer into each other’s souls and really, truly, see each other. Or maybe, just maybe, I haven’t found my tribe yet. Maybe they’re at a lunch table somewhere, waiting for a loud, obnoxious girl from the east coast to sit down and try to make them laugh with wildly inappropriate, hardly funny jokes. So I guess all I have to say is if you’re out there, please save me a seat. I’ll bring the hostess cupcakes for trade-sies.