The Girlfriend Part One

Before we get going on this, I should specify that the type of girlfriend I’m referring to is not of a romantic nature. I’m talking about those fierce lady friendships that come from mutual love, respect and admiration. In my lifetime, I’ve been fortunate to have met some incredible women. And super duper lucky to be able to call a few of them my friends. If you look at how you’ve evolved over the years, you may notice that your taste (I know, weird word choice) in people has changed too.

Let’s take it waaaaaaay back to our early grade school years. Your choices for friends was likely somewhat limited. It came down to either the kids of your parent’s friends or whoever lived in your neighborhood. At school your friends may have been chosen based on who liked to play the same things you did: sports, swings, slides, monkey bars, tag, Barbies, pretend. In my early days, I loved the playground. As soon as the recess bell rang, I’d race to the swings because there were only 6 of them and I loved the rush of wind as you leaned in to get higher and higher. There were days it felt like I was going to launch myself into the sky. I loved to run too so when I wasn’t one of the quick 6 that made it to the swings first, I’d race around the field until my sides cramped up. Those were the days. It was all about having fun with whoever else wanted to have fun too. So uncomplicated. Makes me wonder why we were ever in a hurry to grow up.

Moving into the last year or two of elementary school (grades 5 and 6 here in Canada), the friend dynamic began to change. When I was in the sixth grade, my family moved and I had to change schools. What made this transition a little tricky was that we moved part way through September so I started the school year with my friends at the school I had gone to since kindergarten and then, 2 weeks later, moved to the new school. If you’ve ever been the new kid anywhere, you know exactly how it feels. I had been dreading the moment where you walk into the classroom with the principal after everyone is already seated and learning is underway for the day. All eyes are on you as soon as you walk through the door and those eyes make an immediate decision on if they’re going to like you or not. Luckily for me I already knew one person. She was the daughter of a guy my dad knew from work and we had met once before I was paraded into the classroom with the invisible “NEW KID” sign hanging from my neck. Yes we met through our parents, but our friendship was forged through a mutual love of popular TV shows, boy crushes and great music. I’m happy to say that we’re still friends all these years later. She stood by me through a LOT: awkward teenage years, sickness and hospitalization and bad decisions included. Even though life gets in the way sometimes, her and I will be lifelong friends. She’s part of my lady army.

Aside from her, the rest of my first and only year at that school was anything besides pleasant. You know that movie Mean Girls? I lived it. Invites to sleepovers that were just a ruse (knock on the door and no one is home), discussing matching attire for the next day only to be the only one wearing it. You know, that kind of stuff. There were a few unfortunate rumors when I ended up on crutches for 6 weeks from a bad knee injury. All in all, I wasn’t sad to move on.

Junior high. Middle school. Whatever you call it, these may not have been my best years but they were certainly some of the most formative. Because of where we had moved to, my choice of schools was limited so my friend and I chose to go to what was referred to as the smart kid school. It all started out pretty good. We made some new friends (some were boys!) and expanded our social circle. There was still bonding over boy crushes, good TV and great music, but it also included mutual dislike for certain teachers and their styles, rope climbing in gym, the always awkward Social Dance unit and the school dances they referred to as sock hops. We for reals attended in our socks because they didn’t want us marking up the freshly waxed gym floor. Good times. It was during these years that I really started paying attention to my image. Now I’m not going to go into any details about that in this piece because it’ll need a few dedicated entries all on its own. I will say that mean girls from elementary school had nothing on mean girls from junior high, especially when you mixed in rising self-consciousness and societal expectations. I will say that I got really sick in grade 8 and spent most of my grade 9 year in a couple different hospitals. And if you think people talk shamelessly behind your back when you’re around to hear most of it, you can only imagine what they say when sightings of you are rarer than Bigfoot…discussed in hush tones, but never actually seen. This, for the record, is the thing teenage nightmares are made of. In those 3 short years, I added a couple more peeps to my awesome army. The single boy that made it into my army became one of my dearest friends and is actually now married to the first person that ever joined my army. I love them both to this day and am grateful to have them in my life.

High school. I swear that when I hear people say that their high school years were the best years of their lives, I throw up in my mouth a little. While I have some fond memories of those 3 years, they were not, nor will they ever be, deemed the best of my life. In all honesty, hearing that makes me so sad for those people. For those that are in the midst of those turbulent times, really hear and believe me when I say it’s going to get so much better. Life is magical. Don’t ever waste a second of it wishing you could fast forward or go back. Whatever is happening to you in these moments is preparing you for something so much greater. Please be kind and be patient.

To kick off high school I spent some more time in hospitals, this time out of province. Wanna guess how good that was for my reputation? The running theories (read: rumors) were that I was either in rehab or that I was attending private school because I got pregnant. Hahahahahahahahahahaha! Riiiiggghhhtttt… The reason that there was so much speculation on the matter is that I just disappeared from school one afternoon. My close friends and the school faculty knew what was going on, but no one else did. And in case I never said it before, thank you to everyone that helped my illness remain a secret until I was ready to share the details myself. I will always be so grateful to you for protecting me.

When I returned, the transition was easier than I expected. My bestie introduced me to some new people and we continued bonding the way teenage girls do: rom-com movies, boy crushes and fries and gravy. The crazy bullshit behavior still happened, but my squad was solid. The four of us were inseparable back then. I remember signing each other’s final high school yearbooks, declaring that we would be friends forever and excitedly talking about our plans for what came next.

Next looked different for each of us. One went to university to get a degree, one took a year off (I think? If she ever reads this and figures out I’m talking about her, I’m sure she’ll correct me!) and the other proclaimed she’d never go back to school. To the best of my knowledge she has stayed true to that. At the end of my graduating year, I made the decision to take a year off and do whatever came up. I didn’t feel grown-up enough to make the decision on what I was going to do for the rest of my life. I ended up getting a really great job and spending time with friends on the weekends dancing and drinking copious amounts of vodka. The light was definitely dimming on our forever friendship and, sad as it was at the time, it was the way it was meant to be. I wish I had known back then that sometimes you have to let go of what you think you want to make room for what’s to come.

During that transition time, I became close with another girl I had met back in junior high. We didn’t really spend a lot of time together until we were older because she was more of a friend-of-a-friend and when I did finally get to know her around the beginning of high school, her parents transferred her to a school way on the other side of the city. We went through some pretty crazy things together in our late teens and early twenties and even though we don’t see each other or talk much these days, she’s family. And when we do get to talk and spend time together, we pick up right where we left off.

To be continued…