The Beginning of Friendship

When I was in kindergarten, there was this little girl who rode my bus.  We were in different classes, but I still knew her name.  She had golden brown hair that fell in ringlets around her freckly face.  And she wore lots of dresses.  Every day the bus would take her up to the top of the hill to a house with a really large field before heading back to down to my house in the valley.  I don’t remember if I had ever talked to her before.  What I do remember is the one day that she had to go to the bathroom and couldn’t quite make it as the bus struggled up the steep hill to her house in the field.  And as we finally rolled to a stop, a river of pee made its way down the grooves in the center aisle.  She had to do the walk of shame down that aisle, surrounded by whispers from kids figuring out what that river was.  I felt bad for her, but more than that, I felt really, really glad I wasn’t her.  She would be known as the girl who peed in the bus for several weeks after that.  And I would avoid her for the rest of the year to save myself from that shame.

A year later my teacher was Mrs. Heofer.  She was a nice teacher who spoke kindly and gently.  And she sat me front and center…..right next to Pee Girl.  And for the first five minutes I was very quiet.  But after that, there was no shutting us up.  We became fast friends, inseparable.  And the teacher soon learned that we really shouldn’t sit together if she needed our full attention.  But it was too late.  In a matter of moments, we became best friends.

Two weeks ago, a new family moved in next door.  I hadn’t met them yet, but I could hear them moving around through the thin walls.  I wondered what they would be like.  Would they be friendly?  Would they keep to themselves?  Would we have BBQ’s together, or share jokes over wine, or would we find that we couldn’t stand each other?  Were they kind of neighbors that would fight constantly or play loud music or stomp up and down the stairs?  What kind of neighbors would they be?

Getting new neighbors is stressful. I love my condo.  I live on a good street, I pay a decent amount for rent, the condo is really pretty and the neighbors are all good people.  A bad next door neighbor could throw everything out of whack.

On Sunday as we were coming back from church, they were on their way to their car.  It was a couple and their young son, a son who looked very close to my son’s age.  Sweet!  We introduced ourselves, and I turned to the boy.

“How old are you?” I asked him.

“8,” he said.

“Just like my son,” I said.  The boys grinned shyly, barely making eye contact as we said our goodbyes.  And that was it for our first meeting.

A week passed, and my kids were at their dad’s house.  I had friends over for breakfast and left the front door open to enjoy the nice breeze.  I could see the new neighbor kid hovering outside, peeking in as slyly as possible. I waved at him.  He looked like a deer caught in the headlights.  He waved back quickly and ran off.  But I noticed him staying close to my doorway for the rest of the morning.

My friends left and I went to pick up my kids.  We had a birthday party to be at, and stayed there for several hours.  We came back late that afternoon happy, sunburnt, and exhausted.  My son even fell asleep in the car.  I coaxed him awake so that he could walk to the house, and told him to go lie on the couch and rest some more.  He slept walked to the house.

We were only there for 5 minutes when there was a knock on the door.  We opened it and there stood the neighbor kid. 

“Can you play?” he asked my son.  And suddenly all tiredness left him.  The boys skateboarded outside, and then played on the scooter.  When outside got boring they came in and played video games.  When that got boring, they went back outside and I took them to the park.  They played baseball, football, and soccer.  The boys were like peas in a pod.  They were inseparable.

Every day this week that I went to work, I would come home and there would be a note from the neighbor kid to my son, asking if he wanted to play.  And every day my son would beg me to let him.  Together they would be in and out of my house and the neighbor’s house until my 8:30 pm curfew.  Tonight my son is actually spending the night over there.

All this after knowing each other less than a week.

My best friend and I went through a lot in our formative years.  We shared our secrets and our love of all things imagined like unicorns and fairies.  We made fun of her little sister and would hide in the attic where the computer was.  We would tell ghost stories at night, till we couldn’t fall asleep.  We learned what jealousy was as our little group of two was suddenly expanded to include another.  One of us would inevitably be left out.  We knew each others crushes and imagined what a first kiss would be like.  And when her parents got a divorce and her household got split apart, it was our friendship that stayed the same.  I had no idea what she was going through, and she gave no reason to believe that anything was different.  So we continued in our innocent friendship as if the world was alright.  And maybe in that, it MADE it alright.

I am reading this book right now called Firefly Lane, by Kristin Hannah.  It is the story of two girls and their friendship, and how that friendship saved each other.  It has made me laugh and cry, sometimes simultaneously.  It’s also the reason I am looking so closely at the friendship between my son and the neighbor, and why I am reminiscing about my own friend that I clung to, and who clung to me.  Friendships are important for everyone, kids and adults.  They help us to sort out ourselves, and to have someone to lean on when things are too hard. Life is better when you have someone to laugh with.  This whole beginning of a friendship, it is precious in its purity.  I can already tell the boys’ friendship will grow into something much bigger than them with how much they have in common and how alike they are.  And I have high hopes for it because the kid really is a great kid. 

And let’s face it, it is rather convenient when they can take themselves to their own playdates.