True Friends

It was 2007, the sun was bright and my mom was wiping her tears away readying herself to send her first baby girl off to kindergarten… Alone. She had fitted me in a pink and yellow flowered dress and a matching headband to pull my hair away from my face. My My Little Pony backpack was packed with my Scooby Doo lunchbox and my red folder ready for tackling the day. So I waved goodbye to my tearful mother and boarded the bus, stuffed dog in hand.

Unluckily for me I had learned the day before that I had a crippling intolerance to motion and was sequestered to the front two rows of the bus.

So I arrived at school friendless, with no bus buddies in sight. I am a very loud person. This attribute is something that I formed over time; so 13 years ago, when I had rarely ever interacted with anyone other than my two friends and my mom, my loud personality did not exist. When I walked into the classroom, I found my assigned seat and went to play time still only accompanied by my stuffed dog Sally. By lunch, Sally was still my only friend and I held her ratty paw as I walked outside looking around at all the other kids already paired up with each other.That’s when I saw her, the only other kindergartner that was by themselves sitting eating her lunch.

Hungry, for friendship I decided I would walk over, because if I could talk to the adults at the grocery store I sure as heck could talk to the kids at my school. Hoisting my lunchbox up onto the table I sat down.

“Hi there”

“Hi”

“What’s your name? My name is M.”

“My name is Annie”

“ I don’t have any friends yet, do you?”

“No”

“Would you like to be my friend?”

“Sure”

From that day forward we were inseparable. Annie and I ate lunch together, played together during free-time, and hung out outside of school. We hung out with the other kids, but were pretty inseparable when it came to other activities.

At some point during our friendship, we picked up another girl named Ruby, but none of us remember how we met her back then. Ruby, Annie and I spent every weekend together whether it was all of us or just two. We were a true trifecta of friends that enjoyed each other equally. They made everything fun, and didn’t care about sitting in the back of the bus.

Years went by, birthday parties, bus rides, and sleep overs. We even made our own rap about chicken nuggets featuring Ruby’s beat boxing skills. Then middle school hit. Both Annie and Ruby decided that Oak Hill High school wasn’t for them. They were moving. This was my worst nightmare. The people I had stuck with for so long, leaving, the thought was unbearable. Would they forget about me? One of them is going five hours away, would we grow apart? The next year all of my questions were answered.

For a while we drifted apart, both Annie and Ruby were getting used to their new schools and new friends. Through this drift though, we still celebrated birthdays and had sleepovers when we had time. It was during this period that I figured out that I don’t need to have people by my side every minute of the day. I was fine without them. My new independence suited me. Each year, we grew closer than the last.

Now, during my senior year Ruby and I talk almost every day and hang out whenever we can. Annie talks to me when she isn’t busy doing homework. It’s almost as if they never left at all.

When my friends moved away I assumed we would drift apart. At first, we did, but we came back together and are almost as close as we were when they lived five minutes down the road. My biggest fears never came true, we are best friends and will be for a very long time. That day in kindergarten I never expected to get such a genuine life long friend, let alone two; but I am very grateful that I did, because I don’t know where I would be without them.

My story is similar to the sisterhood of the traveling pants. A group of friends moves away from each other, but stays connected despite the distance. While their story is only for a summer, Annie, Ruby, and I’s story puts us farther apart for much longer. We also don’t have a pair of pants that magically fits all of us, linking us all together in friendship. What we do have are genuine good memories together that will never truly be forgotten. The summer they were apart the “sisterhood” girls expected to grow apart, much like Ruby, Annie’s, and I’s expectation. To their surprise though their time apart made their friendship stronger and more genuine. This unexpected result constituted the same reaction that my friends had even though we don’t all wear the same pants size.

Photo by pepperberryfarm on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND