I remember meeting a friend, who is currently like a sister to me, in the fourth grade. She was the first Asian student in the whole school. She came from a Christian private school, and for the current school she was in, she stood out to us, not just because of her ethnicity, but because of her clothes. She had short boy-cut black hair and she wore these socks that went up to her knees. Of course as a kid, these are the things we remember.
I also remember that my school was much harder than the school she came from. When she first came to school, she had apparently made straight A's at her private school. Expecting the same at this school, she was placed in the high reading groups. She and I were in the Leopard group. Unfortunately, I learned very quickly that her grades may have been inflated. Either that, or it was a difficult transition which negatively affected her grades. In any case, her grades plummeted when she came to my school, and I think the effect of that impacted her well into her 20s. Still, because she was different and stood out to me, I knew I would be friends with her.
In the place where I lived, being different was a sin. If you weren't born again Christian, or if you didn't go to church, you were most certainly going to hell, and obviously not worthy of talking to. And if you had a family that wasn't southern, well, you may as well just go ahead and paint a red X on your forehead, showing that you were not like them. Having parents from NY and MD, I was the Yankee girl, even though my mother's family had been in the area longer than most of the students' families at the school. It didn't matter though; I was still a Yankee, and therefore separable from the rest. So when my friend (we'll call her Mary) came to school, I wanted to be friends with her because I was certain I knew how she felt.
So we became friends almost instantaneously. She came to my house way out in the country and I went to her house way out in the suburbs of Lynchburg. We used to go swimming in my pool, and she and I would talk on the phone for hours and hours, much to my parents' (and sister's) chagrin. She used to tease me because I roller skated funnily. But she had people teasing her because of the color of her skin (they would ask "what ARE you?"), and so I could take a little bit from her. She was still my friend.
Over the years our friendship strengthened and weakened like a tide ebbs and flows. In high school I transfered to a different school that held higher esteem than my current school. The school I went to had a good mix of students who would either go onto community college or to the Ivies, and everything in between. It was just that kind of school. And when I left, well, she got herself into a good bit of trouble, with a cop. She had run away, and when the cops found her, she kicked the cop and landed herself in Juvenile Detention. Secretly I admired her for having the courage to do something like that, but I also knew how fatally stupid a move that was. She had also been shoplifting and doing all kinds of things that I don't think she would have done if I had stayed. In a sense, I believe she was lost once I left. I know that sounds arrogant, but she really did fall apart after I left her school. It was then that I felt like I had lost her. The phone conversations stopped. I called, but when her mom answered, the news I got was rarely good, and so we went through a period of relative silence between the two of us.
In my junior year of high school, Mary came to my school, and I was so happy. She wasn't in any of my classes, as she had stayed in the lower classes throughout school, but I didn't care. I was so happy that she was there.
When I transferred to the high school, assimilating into that culture wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. My sister had just graduated from that school, and she was well liked and had thrown a huge party in the months before my entry. So when I came in the fall, I wasn't me, I was my sister's sister. And that's what everyone called me, including my teachers. So I wanted to live up to everyone's expectations of what my sister's sister should be. In some ways, I succeeded. In others, I failed miserably. I was not the stellar student that she was. My family had fallen apart when I first came to school, and so my focus was not always on school. I sometimes felt like I was a disappointment to my teachers because I was not her. Now I realize that this was probably not true, but when my teachers (the same teachers my sister had, no less) wrote comments like "not meeting potential," I always wondered if that was because they were comparing me to her, and not just seeing me for who I was. Now I realize that probably both are true. Teachers do compare siblings and they also see them for who they are, so on point, I was right. But I let that control my feeling of inadequacy throughout my high school career. And so I was very happy to have my childhood friend, the one who didn't think of me as my sister's sister, at the same school as me.
Having Mary at my school was definitely a plus for me, socially, too. When I came as a freshman, I was the new girl, and people were intrigued by me. By the time my junior year had come along, I was just one of the girls in that circle at my high school. I wouldn't say I was one of the popular girls, per se, but I was in all of the social groups where all of the popular people were. But when Mary came along, as my new friend, we were the hit of the crowd, and we got a lot of attention. I loved it. Unfortunately, my social agenda had permanently supplanted my academic agenda in my junior year, and my grades suffered. My dad didn't do much about it. Parental guilt over a divorce is a power to be reckoned with. They want to give you what you want because they feel guilt over the failure over their marriage, and if you're smart, you know how to work that guilt. Well, I worked it. He never checked to see I did my homework. He asked, and I said I did it, but I was lying. The worst part is that when I studied, I could pull A's and B's in my sleep, so my semester grades weren't as bad as my quarterly grades. I just didn't want to focus on school. I wanted to be with my friends and just survive after the divorce. Mary and I were once again inseparable. We talked on the phone for hours, laughed and cried until it hurt and in a way, we both started to heal in each other's presence.
When we went away to college I went to a small four year school that I would eventually transfer out of for a better school. Mary went to a small private college out in Colorado and failed out within her first year. Apparently going to a school in a ski resort area isn't the best idea for someone who has trouble with studying anyway. Once again, we fell out of touch. Phone calls were intermittent, but I always wanted to know how she was. When I went home I would try to see her, and it was always like we had seen each other just the other day.
After I graduated from school she reappeared in my life, and has stayed there ever since. She calls me when she needs help or advice, or just to talk. I am like a sister to her. She never had any siblings, so I am the closest thing she has to a sister. There are months when I don't hear from her, and I always wonder if she's okay. And then, she pops back in as quickly as she disappeared for a few months. But when we talk, it's as if she is still the little girl in knee high socks, and I am still the awkward Yankee girl in Virginia.
As I look at the picture of my niece and I see the three girls, I wonder if she is making a lifelong friend as I. If I thought she would remember my words I would tell her that the good friends are a lifeline when everything around you is crumbling. They will help you laugh your way through pain and see that the passage of time truly does heal old wounds. Scars will remain, but friends help ease the pain.
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