“Pearl is my best friend,” the three-year-old used to say. And sometimes, while fainting a little: “Oh, I love her so much.” Pearl’s mother told me that feeling was shared by both of us. They paint each other’s pictures, insist on dating each other, and one won’t start her GAA training until the other is ready. Their friendship is one that is not as complicated and endearing as you might hope to find. I was even more nervous, I was worried about how it would stand the test of time – new school, different activities, newer friends. This simple, uncomplicated yet enjoyable friendship reminds me of my first best friend and my first great loss.
ree and I were close as toddlers: almost literally, neighbors. There are photo albums filled with pictures of us playing, singing and dancing, giving each other steamy kisses, celebrating birthdays together. One day, when I was about four years old, I walked into her house – a place almost as familiar as my own – and found it empty. I can still remember the moment it was revealed that the family was moving to the next town. To think no one asked me if I was okay with this. That was the first time I realized that things don’t always go your way in life and things can disappear from you even if you don’t want to. In the scheme of things, people – and especially children – experience much greater trauma, but this one, I feel deeply. I remember her dad sitting on the only armchair left, casually watching my hysteria and fury (he was also eating an apple to the seed, and more than anything, I was worried. about a tree growing in his stomach).
Bree then became a mythical figure in my mind: a letter friend I didn’t write to. A friend, strangely, has no friendship. Despite our relative proximity as toddlers, Bree and I only met years later when we started middle school. It was not the rushing, rushing reunion I had envisioned, and I was overwhelmed and confused by the person standing in front of me, who was clearly my childhood friend, but neither was it. . Running in completely different circles, we barely nodded to each other as we went from class to class.
In You’re the only one I can talk to: Inside the friendship language of women, Deborah Tannen explores differences in conversations between girlfriends. From an early age, girls spend more time sitting and talking than boys, Tannen said. They soon learn that telling your best friend everything makes sense; it carries an element of social imprint.
A woman’s friendship, whether you’re 3 years old, 13 or 30, always begins like a blooming flower. They are often uncomplicated and pure from the start, underpinned by the great intimacy, energy, and responsibility two women can create. And then life happens to them.
Messy, fun, and complicated in turn, women’s friendships can have their ups and downs, but are possibly the richest friendships a woman will enjoy. We are often told through the media and movies/TV that women and their friends share an unbreakable bond. It is because of the intimacy and intensity between female friends that they can sometimes be cruel to each other.
I’ve been thinking more about the delicate nature of girlfriends ever since I recently mended my friendship with someone I’d dramatically and dramatically broke up with over a decade ago. The reasons for the fracture, all my fault, seemed childish and overblown in the rearview mirror, although it seemed grandiose and well-founded at the time. “No reply needed, but I was thinking of you and hoping that life will be fine and all will work out,” my old friend wrote in a WhatsApp message. That’s a great message to receive, and one that I’ve been too stupid and proud to send out for years. Hesitantly, we texted back and forth, stepping back a bit into each other’s lives and hearts. At the very least, the poison I had stored in my body had evaporated, and for that alone, I was surprisingly grateful. I jumped with excitement when I got a text from her, like I was getting back to being romantic for the first time with a new boyfriend. We hung out a bit at a mutual friend’s wedding over the weekend. While we remained rigidly polite to each other, it reminded me of the pure and easy friendship we once had.
I have a group of friends that ride or die that even the idea of losing their friendship takes my breath away. I have to remind myself, in this era of busyness, schedules and stress, to cherish these friendships more. In that respect, I can take a leaf from my daughter’s book (and actually from my three-year-old himself), leaving so much room for a best friend that the social circle is so small. but her perfectly formed the better for that.
