You know those friends who have been there for every embarrassing moment of your entire life? They’ve seen your decrepit Puffalump sleepy time horse that once sat in your crib, they were there that day you decided to jump up the down escalator like a fool, and they ate Velveeta with you and refused to rat you out when you spilled it all over the floor.
You spent hours in the driveway jumping rope, days solving Nancy Drew computer games, and years learning absolutely everything about your forever friends.
These little moments eventually added up into a full-blown friendship that was as stable as that old oak tree in your backyard. Nothing wavered, but everything changed. Growing up together is never as scary when you have friends in the same phase of life as yourself.
We always wonder how these people stay with us for most of our lives from the preschool days on. Maybe it’s because your family tree is so huge that they just insist on staying to learn every person on it, or maybe they know that someday they’ll get to be the lucky ones in your wedding that stand right by your side while hiding your sleepytime Puffalump as your something old. In a way, the friendship is kind of like that Puffalump: You protect it with your life.
They’ve seen you at your worst days, like that time you fell and split your knee open running and insisted upon making you get back out there a week later. They told you to shed that Mickey Mouse sweatshirt after your first breakup because the boy wasn’t worth hiding at home watching Gilmore Girls and eating Ben & Jerry’s over. They helped conduct many a craft that was decidedly disastrous.
But, most importantly, they were honest. In the 3rd grade, they watched you painfully drag your flute down the hallway to the band room and eventually admitted that they knew you stunk at it. Sometimes forever friends know the truth before you do because they’ve been there all along. They knew that someday you would stop being terrified of their dog and that one day you’d find prince charming because you read (and made them read) way too many young adult romance novels.
And the funny thing is, when you met them, you weren’t trying so hard to be their friend: it just sort of happened. You met in places like your Brownie troop, in the bathroom that day in the 5th grade when you both had on the same earrings, in the Jazzercise babysitting room at the age of six, or even at the age of four when your uncle introduced you to your family friends that would stay there for a lifetime.
These are the moments we cherish forever. The moments when we were just being ourselves and weren’t trying to impress the world and fake it. The friends you’ve known forever are always the first ones to know everything because they get everything. Here’s the one ultimate truth about forever friends though: They’re pretty much stuck with you because they know too much.
