Lost Friendships

A long time ago, I had a very good friend…

We met in second grade and we were inseparable all through elementary school.  We had so much in common.  We were kind of the outcasts.  We weren’t pretty or popular, but we made friends easily with others.  And we loved horses. We even played like we owned horses; naming each one and even making pedigrees for them.

We went to the same church.  We were in the choir and Youth Ministry together.  We were in Job’s Daughter (a Masonic group for young girls based on the book of JOB)  together.

(Not me, but what the Queen would look like)

We went on trips and saw Natural Bridge; short-sheeted beds, and once we were even blamed for putting dish soap in a motel fountain….but thank goodness our group didn’t do that!

We went to the library, the Mall and the beach together.  If you saw one of us, the other was right there, too. We went to Triple R Ranch together on Saturdays. We went to summer playground together at the school.

We went to the same High school together.  Back then, there were only 2 levels of school.  You went to Elementary school through the 7th grade, then High school from 8th through 12th grades.

We were kind of goofy. We would look at the cute guys and wish, but we could never talk to the ones we liked.  We would follow them, find out where they lived and walk past their house.  I guess nowadays, you would call that “Stalking”.  But we never did anything but look and hope they would notice us.

We were the wall flowers at the dances…unless it was “everyone on the dance floor”.  During the summers, we hung out at the Snack bar at the beach or the “Fooze Ball” hall. 

Man, we could play some fooze ball!  I loved to stand on one foot, stork like and “whip” anyone who would challenge me.

She joined the marching band; but I tried out for the Drill team just to be with her.  We had several other new friends from High school that always hung out together with us.  All summer, we practiced on the fields and hung out at Hardees, where all of us would go for lunch.  During the week we had practices.  Every Friday night was Football games.  There were trips and parades.

She was the first one to “chase” boys and have a “boyfriend”.  Later, when a cute typical “Bad” boy moved in next door, I found one, too. But I was the first one to get married.

And that’s when things changed….I moved with my husband and young son the year we were supposed to graduate together.  Later when my marriage broke up and I moved home, we started hanging out together again.  This time we were older, and we’d go to the bars…Chasing men…We were “groupies” of sort for a band called “Filthy McNasty and the Magical Mystery Band”.  After the bars closed, we go to breakfast or cruise the strip at the beach. 

And then she met her future husband.  The funny thing was, we already knew his Aunt from the restaurant where I worked. And then we started growing apart.  She hung out more with him, and didn’t have time for me anymore.  Her “best friend” became a girl we had met in High School. 

Her father died the summer before she married.  As a wedding present, I paid for her wedding photographer.  I didn’t get to go to her shower as I was working to support my 2 children.  And I felt a twinge of jealousy when she chose the other girl as her “Maid of Honor”.  How could she when we had known each other for over 10 years, and she had known this girl barely 5??  Instead, I was a bridesmaid…in a dress I had to pay for and couldn’t stand to look at.  And I caught the bouquet.

She never gave me a wedding present….for either of my marriages….no baby present for my 4 children.  Her husband and her decided pets were easier to raise than children; and so thy have none.

She called once, and we went out together for a ride.  She had heard an ex boyfriend worked in a hardware store and wanted to check him out again…

She’s been married 32 years now…I’ve been married 31….She lost not only both of his parents and his Aunt, but both of her parents as well.. It shocked me when I learned that her mother had lay in bed in her own home alone dead with only the dog there for 4 days.  My girlfriend lived no more than 2 miles away from her mother, but they didn’t even talk every day on the phone. Her family had always been like that….very private and each of the 4 of them had their own “domain” in the house where they retreated to between meals. She now lives in her childhood home.  Between selling the house they had bought as a couple and inheritance from 3 sides, they are part of the “well to do” families we could never be a part of as children.

I miss her friendship.

Thank goodness over the internet, I have been able to make more friends.

Hugs and Love to all!