vida cotidana et merda (september)
Do you remember meeting your best friend? I don’t. I’ve known her as long as I can remember. I remember hating her until we were about eight years old. I only hung out with her because our brothers were best friends. I had plenty of other friends, I didn’t need her. Needless to say, now I barely speak to the friends I couldn’t live without.
Things change as we get older. We grow closer to some people and further away from others. We meet lots of new people too. The other day when I realized that I’ve known some of my friends since sixth grade, I was blown away. That’s five years! How is it that I’m amazed by friendships that are only a few years old, but I see a friendship that has lasted seemingly forever as something normal, nothing special?
We value what we haven’t always had. We remember our lives before new friends, and we cherish these people for the things they bring now. But the people who have always been around are the ones we should really cherish. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the pictures that my high school friends and I took in the Apple store this summer mean a lot to me, but the picture of my best friend and me at my older brother’s sixth birthday at Chuck E. Cheese means more.
It’s much easier to make friends when you’re younger. Your mom’s friend’s kids are the people you hang out with. Sitting next to each other in kindergarten seals your friendships. Having a common interest in the purple markers guarantees that you’ll be close forever. But when you’re older, it’s not the same. I’m not best friends with most of the people who sit next to me in class. I didn’t grow up with them; I don’t have those shared experiences to bring me close to them. By high school, friendships that can’t stand the test of time have already fallen apart. At this age new friendships spring from bleeding, sweating, and crying together during two-a-days of Poms practice in August, making the effort to see each other outside of school-related events, enjoying each other’s company enough to be in the same homecoming group.
So which friendships are better- the ones that are new and exciting or the ones that have always been there? Maybe the best thing is to appreciate them all. Get a collage picture frame hang them all up in your room. Let your middle school friends poke you until you fall off your chair like you did in sixth grade, get Chipotle with your high school friends after you go to the homecoming game, and spend next Saturday watching Phineas and Ferb with your life-long friend.
And if your childhood best friend re-tweets you on Twitter, take that as a reminder that they still know who you are and remember all the good times you had in second grade.