Bottle #119, on Youngman sculpture, Fine and Applied Arts Building, University of Illinois, Champaig

"These are my friends. They mean everything to me"

photo by Elbel

For three years now, I've been stockpiling images and short videos in a file full of pictures of my friends. It's on google drive in a massive digital pile and I've never really looked all the way through it, When I graduate high school this year I think I'll go to a Costco and print them all out so I can put them in a scrapbook that will hopefully never be opened, except to add to it. I put them all there just in case I ever get really down. It's a fail- safe I suppose. Hopefully, it'll only ever be used to laugh and reminisce.

Every time I open it, it's sappy, but I really can't help but smile. My friends are all the best. They're a group of the most entertaining and adorable nerds and the best times of my life have been with these guys, surviving high school one grin and bad pun at a time. If I'm ever sad or lonely, they're always there, and when I do dumb things they're there to contribute.

The folder gets bigger weekly, it's at a few hundred photos; by the end of this school year, it should be a thousand. That's what picks me up, what makes me smile. Those times I've spent with my friends, the best people I will ever know, so much better than I could possibly ask for. So much kinder than I deserve.

photos of bottle on Robert Youngman sculpture below by Elbel