You know who you are. I went to elementary school with you. We were in the same activities together for years. We were two of the only ones left in orchestra by the end of sixth grade, we knew the same people, and were part of the same circles.
When people find out we went to elementary school together but didn't become friends until senior year of high school, they are, well... surprised.
I don't remember when I first met you, but I remember thinking all those years that you hated me. It was strange since we couldn't really avoid each other, but we never really talked. I remember being in sixth grade and telling my mom that this "mean girl from orchestra" hated me and always glared at me, for reasons my dramatic kid-brain could never really back up with evidence. Looking back, it was easy for me to say you hated me because it gave me the easy way out -- if you hated me, I didn't have to try to be friends with you.
If someone had told me in sixth grade that seven years later the mean girl from orchestra would be my unofficial third roommate, that you would be laughing with me at our somewhat strange inside jokes, that you would be one of the closest friends I'd have, I would have thought they were crazy (that, and, well, you know I'd also wonder how on Earth they ended up in this back-to-the-future situation).
But I wasn't the only one who thought this, which was kind of a relief. Most of our mutual friends apparently thought the same... and this got me thinking, "What did my closest friends now think about me when I first met them?" Honestly, though, more than that, I was just amazed at how quick I (and everyone else) was so quick to judge you. Maybe, if I hadn't judged you so quickly, we could have been friends from the start.
Today, you and I don't always agree on everything, but it doesn't matter -- because at the end of the day, you'll be one of the friends who's got my back, just like I've got yours. In seven years you went from being that girl who I was convinced was out to get me to being the friend who I can always confide in. The road to this friendship was long and unexpected, but I guess it was meant to be, and it turned out all right. Hopefully, we can look back on today seven years from now and be just as close friends (but a little saner).
You taught me that sometimes, it's the most unexpected people -- the people who you could never imagine getting along with -- that turn out to be the best of friends.
