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| Rants >> Columns |
 Nikki |
Back Then Back then, things were different A little while ago, I saw my once best friend, or at least I thought it was her, on a bus as I was walking in the opposite direction. It was then that I discovered I hadn’t spoken to her in at least a month, and with the exception of running into each other on a popular street in our neighbourhood every once in a while, I hadn’t seen her in at least six months. It got me to thinking, if i should call -- or even consider -- her my friend anymore. We’ve gone longer than this without speaking, and we still have that connection, but I don’t know who she is anymore and I’m sure, vice versa. I’m not sure how we have the connection still, maybe it was from all those school yard fights that divided the whole grade into different sides that kept us strong. We’ve gotten all those childhood arguments out of our system, we’re all secretly childlike now, and pick sides when our friends feud. But, is it enough to make it last any longer?  Kindergarten This is about her, my life and others back then, with a hint of compare and contrast. I’m not sure when we started drifting apart, I think it was when we both went to different schools, but I’m pretty sure it was more because I decided I didn’t want secrets anymore, and let who I really was, my other life, seep out. I left, disappeared, and I think that was the end of it. I can blame myself now, we drifted because I needed change. I can do a lot of things now. I walked a lot back then, I still do, but not so much in this area. I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so the journey wasn’t long enough for public transit. I don’t really walk, exactly anymore. It’s more of a sluggish movement, partly because i like slowing it down and smelling the roses and partly because of my shoes; I’m much more fashionable now. I tend to take public transit more often now, or at least in places I’m overly familiar with. I feel I’ve seen enough of the cracks in the cement that, and it’s mostly uphill both ways around here, not too ideal for walking and especially biking. It’s one of those things I’ve left behind. I kind of wished I walked more. Public transit may have been a reason to why we’re drifting. Because I’d walk to her house, a couple blocks uphill, and we’d sit in her room for hours --days even-- at a time. I can’t remember what we would do to occupy ourselves, but I always remembered dreading when my mother came to pick me up. I remember she always made me wait outside, later I met another person that had a mother who also made her wait outside. We decided it was a eastern European thing. I remember the room was really hot all the time. I remember we always opened the window, the tiny window next to where I would always sit, and in the winter snow would come in, and the lights would always be off because they were so blinding. And when I’d go out of the room into the bright hallway, I’d have to close my eyes and slowly open them to adjust myself to the light. Looking back, I can’t believe 80% of my life from age four to age 15 was spent in there, and I can barely remember where all the time went, besides the time we were laughing so hard she fell in a box and got stuck. Me being the good friend that I am, left her in there, laughed harder and bring the story up every so often. Now, I haven’t been in that room in years, if we meet up, it’s to have a quick conversation, quite often over tea or coffee. It’s always the kind of conversation you have with the family member you see once a year. So how’s it been? Whenever our little meetings were over, I thought it was because we’re older now, and we have more things to do, and maybe that was why we grew apart. I have all the time in the world, or I can make time, but I’m not so sure she can. Our direction, it’s never the same way, or at the same pace. I usually take transit when meeting up with people now. I wonder if I’m missing things by going underneath them, or above them being blocked by others from the window. I don’t have a car, I don’t drive. I have a feeling one day, she’ll want to drive. I usually take a train or a bus to faraway places.  Stuck in a Sweater in old Quebec City I found myself standing in old Quebec City, just where we were together a few years prior, yet another time she managed to get stuck and all I did was laugh, but this time I took a picture and I share the story and that picture every once in a while like it’s the greatest thing ever. Out of that week long trip, that’s the one thing that really stuck in my head the most. I’m not sure if it was one of those things that I was supposed to remember, or just because I had also taken a picture of it. She had a salad moments before that incident. I wonder how many other times she’s gotten stuck and I wasn’t around to laugh at it. We’re really different now, and that’s basic human nature with connections we established long ago that’s kept us running into each other just when we start to drift from each other. And living a few blocks away has nothing to do with it. I use excessive amounts of commas now. I write all my numbers out and it bothers me when other’s don’t. Taking the easy way, no doubt. I’m not as emo anymore, and I’ve got all the journals to prove it. I remember having conversations with her about how we’d be when we got older. And it’s strange that I’m how I said I would be, just not in the way I originally thought. Or maybe I look too deep into things. That’s something I’ve always done, I remember telling her I never thought I’d see the age of thirteen and here i am many years after, telling my new best friend, I can’t see myself being thirty-three. Maybe we don’t change all that much after all. I hate the way my new best friend chews and drinks. Most of the people we both went to school with ended up going to high school with her. Out of the hundred or so people that live mere blocks away, I’ve seen three in the past five years. Two when I went back to high school, they had transferred to my school, and one I saw on T.V. I see her mom at the store closest to me a lot, with the dog, buying lottery tickets just before they shut it down. “Tell her I say hi” We all look the same, and maybe we still are the same in some way. Only now, we make friends with our former enemies. We probably always wanted that, but I’ve always had to have at least one enemy in very situation. |