Childhood friendships usually end up following one of two paths. Either the friendship is an enduring one that stands the test of time or the two playmates simply grow apart over the course of adolescence. For me, two of my closest childhood friendships followed a different path. The days of cutting through my neighbor’s yard and rushing to either Lizzy or Serina’s house so we could talk about the new Justin Bieber single ended so abruptly, it took me months to realize what had actually happened. At the tender age of fourteen, I was unceremoniously ejected from my only friend group.
One rainy September day, I remember sitting in my best friend Lizzy’s attic. It wasn’t a finished attic or an attic a full-grown person could completely stand up in for that matter, but we had spent the past few days covering up the gray, fiberglass insulation with bright pink sheets and blankets, pinning our own artwork to the makeshift walls, filling the small space with more blankets and pillows to sit on, and we even managed to get a small T.V. up the rickety foldaway ladder. Our cramped hideaway was just perfect for Lizzy, Serina, Lizzy’s sister, Ginny, and me. We even came up with a club name for our modest clubhouse.
L.O.G.S. (taken from the first letter of each of our names) was one of my favorite places, for the month or so that it lasted. We even joked about how I, having the only name that started with a vowel, was the most imperative member.
On a particularly boring day in our humble retreat, I fell down the rickety foldaway ladder. Despite landing on the concrete garage floor from a nearly eight-foot drop, the only thing that was actually hurt my middle and ring fingers on my left hand. I had gotten a friction burn . .st friends.Friendships, especially broken ones are difficult things to write about.
Up until now, I suppose if I kept everything tucked away in my mind, then only the good times we had together would be real. I was not originally going to write about this topic, but on Valentine’s Day, I came across Serina’s blog for her personal thoughts. I read through every post she wrote (I think she started writing them in 2015, but she wrote about many different time periods in her life) and noticed that I was not in them at all and, that really hurt me, even though our friendship ended years ago. Did all those weekends, holidays, and Black Friday Shopping excursions we spent together leave a lesser impact on her than they did on me? Whatever the case, I still genuinely care about Lizzy and Serina and wish we could all sit down together and work out everything that went wrong.
