A Slice Of Life: My Best Friend

I met my first best friend in junior high, 8th grade to be exact. I'd spent a year of misery in the enriched program of the 7th grade. I was a pariah and had just one friend, another outcast. I didn't fit in because I was just too emotionally immature. The other kids made fun of me and I crumpled. By the end of the year, I was begging to get out of the enriched program and back on the regular track.

That was where I met my first best friend. She was already hanging out with a sweet but terribly insecure girl and the three of us became fast and true friends. Having a friend makes life bearable in school. We laughed together, gossiped together, shared our notes and our dreams and our resentments of authority and parents.

When we were in junior high, anything could give us the giggles and I'd laugh so hard I'd collapse against a locker, practically in tears. Other people would look at us like we had six heads but I didn't care--I had friends now. My friend's parents had emigrated to this country after escaping the Communist regime in eastern Europe; I told my friend all about my family.

We shared a few adventures together, one day "breaking out" of school right after lunch and heading for downtown. We did nothing that day but walk around talking. It was better than being in school!

I wish I could say that I'm still best friends with her but we drifted apart a few years after high school. I lost touch with her until very recently. Two years ago, I got her email from our class reunion organizer and I wrote to her. She wrote back, very excited to hear from me but said she had to go out of the country for a few weeks. She said she'd write me back but she never did. I tried to email her once or twice but never got an answer back.

Oh well...I get it. Sometimes you just can't go back to the way it used to be.

Here is my first best friend with another classmate. We went back to visit our old teachers at junior high one day. I took the picture.