A Love Essay for My Childhood Friends
LY4E
I am sitting in my therapist’s office for the first time, rambling through my entire life story like an auctioneer, worried that if I slow down I’ll miss something.
“Do you have any good memories?” she asks softly, an acknowledgement that everything I’ve just said is decidedly Not Good.
I pause, look at her through tear-filled eyes.
“Yeah, I do,” I start. “My friends. My friends were so good.”
I grew up in an idyllic Connecticut town often mentioned in the show Gilmore Girls. Part of its charm is that it has largely stayed the same, a steadfast security blanket for all who’ve remained and those who long for the comfort of places unchanged. I dream about it sometimes, the way one tries to catch a vision out of thin air, its bubbling brooks and verdant woods a call to peace. I remember it because I love it, despite how much hurt I survived there.
But this isn’t about the hurt. Not really.
On warm days after elementary school, my neighbor, Emily, and I would tromp through the woods behind her house. There were cliffy rock faces and moss and tall trees everywhere we looked. I’d head up the dirt road and we’d embark on an adventure, singing Mariah and Whitney all the way, creating forts and talking about soccer, then boys. On cold days when a fresh snow would blanket the hill between our houses, all the kids would gather with our sleds to see how fast we could make it down, every slide confirmation that the arduous climb back up was worth it.
Rachel and I spent hours in her bedroom creating “music videos,” dances we made up in the moment to pop songs, and then we’d score each other American Idol-style. When we got our licenses, we’d drive everywhere together and dance in the front seats, our weekly pilgrimages to McDonald’s in the next town over a highlight amidst the chaos of my home. Racing each other down the highway in our matching cars full of underclassmen, we’d recount the strategy that almost always led to my win on the sideline of an indoor soccer field (you definitely lost, Rachel), a sport we played side-by-side for our entire childhood and adolescence.
At Julie’s house we wrote short stories about wolves and romped in the river across the road. Her dad always greeted me with “Hey Daughter,” her mom shouting, “April’s here!” with such genuine glee. Sometimes Julie would show up at my house unannounced and catch me too seriously cuddling my cat, Camille, and yank me out of bed to go to a party. During senior year we started calling each other “Babers” and never stopped. The weekend my Long Term Ex left, Julie came and slept on my couch and sat in the overwhelming silence with me.
Amanda and I rode bikes around town, renegades on two wheels feeling the freedom of humid air on our skin. In high school, we attached a sled to the back of her Jeep Wrangler and bombed around town during snowstorms, dumping off whenever another car or cop would drive by. Alex always listened with a caring ear and then told the funniest, most wildly embellished stories in the backseat of the designated driver car on the way to the diner at 3am. Sarah and Kelly stood alongside me at difficult track practices and we cheered each other on through our very many wins. I’d go with Christie and Meg every year to the country fair, a troop of intelligent, squealing girls far too interested in the opinions of boys. Ryan picked me up at the train station when my dog was dying, and years later asked me to edit his brother’s eulogy. Chris threw me the football in the frigid air of New Year’s Eve in Cape Cod and always validated the truths no one else believed.
I was so, so lucky. I still am.
All of those friends are still my friends. My closest, dearest friends. My eternal lifelines. We never stopped being friends, never even considered it, no matter how far we went away to college or where we settled afterwards. I know that if I were to really need anything from any of my childhood friends, they would help me, no questions asked.
There’s like a born love between all of us who shared this growing up. When my home caved in on me and the abuse got worse, and even when my friends witnessed it or sometimes fell victim to the yelling, none of them ever abandoned me. They just accepted who I was because of it and loved me all the same. They supported my bumbling, bad poetry and held my hand through every horrible heartbreak. They took the hits I dealt because of hurt and only pulled me in tighter.
In college we visited each other’s cities and met back at home and planned our summers together. We took trains and planes and road trips; we camped out in the parking lots of concerts. We danced and drank too much and unfolded a new timeline of memories, our bonds growing ever stronger along the way.
These days some have kids and some don’t. Some are married and some are divorced and some are still looking. We all have individual lives and yet are inextricably linked; they are part of me—my longest, most loyal love story. I know I will never, ever be alone.