My Head's Above The Rain And Roses

I still remember fifth grade when I was too young to think about this but ended up thinking anyway.
I thought the people around me were the people who would stay with me forever.
I thought that this was my wolf pack.
I really enjoyed the company of all the people who were a part of it.
I was happy.
Post summer holidays when school reopened, I was all excited to meet my friends again and tell them stories about my summer vacation and enthusiastically listen to their stories.
Life, however, had other plans.
A week after school reopened a teacher walks into my class and tells me that I had to shift to another section.
That was perhaps my first ever heartbreak!
I packed my bag; my best friend was sobbing already.
I left my pack.
I vowed to have lunch with them every day, spend time with them after classes and all.
It never works that way though.
After a while, I started to feel out of place.
My best friends felt like my ex-best friends.
They were living their life, definitely, but I was not a part of it anymore. I had to make new friends.
The section I was in already had its pack, and there was no vacancy for a new member.
What would a ten-year-old do?
I part timed at different packs.
Some welcomed me; some didn't.
It almost took me a year and a half to stumble across the right people. We formed our small pack.
Our pack slowly expanded and shrunk to its original size by the time I passed out of school.
Four years later, when I am in a similar situation with a different backdrop, the first people to reciprocate are the people I left behind in a different city after school.
There is nothing much they, as individuals could do for a wounded wolf, far from home.
To make new friends or to adjust with the ones that don't care.
"Been there, done that." I guess it's time.
The vacancies are lower.
I wouldn't fit in most vacant places either.
A friend once asked me, "Do you think you'll survive, all alone?"
Because I'm still breathing, I'm still breathing on my own.
My head's above the rain and roses, making my way, away.