Incoherent Scribblings

When I was 11, we moved from “town” to the country and for the first time in my life, I had the dubious pleasure of being a “bus kid.” It was on this bus route that I met my best friend. She lived three stops and about three miles away.

When I first started riding the bus I wasn’t looking for a new friend at all, let alone a best friend. After all, even though she was only six months younger than me, she was a grade behind me. It wasn’t because she was stupid, but because her birthday falls in autumn while mine falls in spring. I knew her from softball and dance class where instead of white tights with her leotards she wore pantyhose. She talked a lot to anyone who was within earshot and more or less drove me crazy.

Of course, it was a time in my life when I was going through pre-teen angst, so just about anyone or anything drove me crazy. But shortly before we moved to the country my angst had intensified as my best friend since kindergarten had recently abandoned me for the “popular” girls. I was depressed and lonely and so even though I didn’t want a new friend, in retrospect I really did need one.

Maybe she sensed it, maybe she was just stubborn, or maybe she was lonely too. (Later I learned her former “best” friend had ditched her for similar reasons as mine.) Whatever her motives were, she tried hard to be my friend and all the while I resisted. In fact, I like to joke that she stalked me to become her friend: If I was sitting alone on the bus, she would sit with me, even if all of the other seats were empty. She called me all the time (up to 10 times a day!) and didn’t get the hint even when I hung up on her. She rode her bike the three miles to my house and followed me around at recess. I was downright mean to her, yet still she persisted.

As it so happened, we were also both the objects of relentless teasing from a boy on the bus. Somehow we joined forces to defend ourselves against him, and in doing so, we actually became friends. By this time a year had passed; we were 12 and it was summer. Suddenly we had all day on our hands to go swimming, read Teen Magazine, experiment with makeup, and do the thousands of other things that interest pre-teen girls. Together we did all these things in addition to going to dances, having sleepovers, and in general going “boy-crazy.”

For nearly three years we were practically inseparable and every time we got into trouble, my parents would tell me it was because she was a bad influence on me. They claimed her parents weren’t as strict as they were and if I wasn’t friends with her, I never would have become so boy-crazy. Of course, we got the impression that my parents didn’t like her and so I only wanted to hang out with her more. (It was untrue of course, my parents did like her; they just were unprepared for me to go charging into my teenage years like that.)

When I was in ninth grade, she moved away. And so, I spent my teenage years getting drunk and partying with other people. All the while I kept in touch with my best friend though I saw her less and less. Finally, I graduated from high school and moved away. Then one day while I was in college I got a phone call from her. She had gotten married and was expecting a baby. Truly I figured that was the end of our friendship, but somehow it lasted. Today, we are both married, she has a family, and we live further apart than ever. However, when we do get together it is like we were never apart.

Who would have thought a friendship forged during those turbulent pre-teen years would not only last, but grow and change enough so that nearly twenty years later we are still best friends?

Posted on Friday 10 December 2004 at 10:27 under memory lane.
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