When you grow up in a fairly rural, most of your close friends until you get a car live just down the street from you. I can definitely attest to that, as my best friend grew up on the same street as I did. I for one was lucky to not just have one, but two friends who grew up within a five-minute walk from my house. I felt like an older sibling at my friend Christine's house, I was friends with her before two of her younger siblings had been born, and to them, I was family as much as their parents were.
However, her dad got a job offer in Florida, and they had to mmove almost 1200 miles away. I remember when she found out they were moving. She called me, and we both cried a lot. How were we supposed to go from seeing each other multiple times a day to maybe a phone call every few weeks? Our last summer together felt like a whirlwind. I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her, but I had summer swim team, and she had to pack. Before I knew it, she was gone.
At first, we both spent every minute we could Skyping each other on our parents' laptops, probably driving everyone crazy of how we never ran out of things to talk about after hours on the phone. We would watch Youtube videos together sometimes and do anything we could to make the distance feel a little less small, but after a while, it became hard to find time to spend together. We had different lifestyles, and our crazy schedules matched up so rarely our daily talks became weekly, then monthly, and eventually stopped.
We lost contact for a few years, and then out of the blue, I got a letter in the mail from her and we exchanged numbers again. From that moment on, I knew I wanted to see her again in person one more time before I left for college. After almost six years, we finally got to meet again and it was the most magical 36 hours of my life. It ended up being gross and rainy the whole time we were together, so what says bonding like watching almost two full seasons of Parks and Rec together?
Growing up, we definitely had a lot of shared meals at each other's houses, and now that we're both adults we didn't have to rely on our parents to feed us. Instead, we relied on the magic of Uber Eats. Being near a city, we had a grand reunion meal of nuggets and fries.
It was hard to catch up on six years of missed memories in a day and a half, and it was so bittersweet to wave her off as she went home, and a few days later when I caught my flight back to Ohio. Through the years of lack of communication, we still somehow remained on the same wavelength. We both became obsessed with the musical Hamilton, read most of the same books, and watched the same TV shows. I already miss her like crazy again, and I can't wait to visit her again, but this time, hopefully, sooner than six years.
