Friendship that stayed with ME & changed Me!

And WE will be by each other’s side till Eternity!

Well, I am almost 30 now and so is She !

We are settled in two different countries and we rarely meet or say we have just met twice since 2006. Makes you wonder right, how she still happens to be the most essential and important part of my life and how this friendship yet values alot to me despite the distance and why after so many years,I happen to write down about this amazing childhood friend of mine.

It’s because she is that friend who knocked at the door of my friendship and when I opened it, she made sure to never walk out of it and be there for me unconditionally. She made sure to be that special friend in my life with whom I had shared many cherishable moments and made memories for LIFE! Well, you do always have a friend whom you immensely love and Cheers! I found my first love in this innocent friendship of ours and you see the first of everything in Life in always Special!

Some people are meant to cross paths and only a few happen to realize that they were meant to be there for each other. We studied in a boarding school in India right from std.1 and she was an year senior to me at school. We had spent good 10 years in our boarding school, being confined within the 4 walls and among the same people, this place had literally become a second home. In over these 10 years, we crossed each other’s path uncountable times but never ever thought that someday we would become the best of friends. It was when I stepped in the 8th Grade and she was in the 9th, that we realised that we were meant to just stay there for each other and develop an unconditional innocent friendship. This time we just didn’t cross each other’s path but we even decided to stay there for each other- As if it was always meant to happen and we just realised it.

Honestly, our friendship had started with a big quarrel where she happened to yell at me(being my senior at school) and because of this one quarrel we happened to bump into each other so many times, that it was actually then when we realized that we were similar to each other in one major aspect and that was giving it all in FRIENDSHIP!

When you are away from home and grow up together as kids then you begin to realize the importance of friendship and you begin living it in the purest form. I love this childhood friend of mine for several reasons:

• She taught me the meaning of Friendship.Well, she indeed did teach me the meaning of friendship from her point of view. She taught me that Love wasn’t just meant for parents and Lovers but it was also meant to be expressed for a Friend whom you never wanted to give up on or whom you wanted in your life forever. Hell yeah! don’t get me wrong that I wasn’t too good a friend infact I valued friendship alot and was considered as a gem of a friend 😛 and it was one of these attributes in me that she stepped into my life. Just that we had our own perspectives and wanted to blend in and accept the differences with a smile on our face and love in our heart.
• She taught me to be calm and that being a short tempered person would do more of a damage not just to me but even to people who love me.
• She loved me immensely and without thinking of the consequences. She taught me what it really was to follow your heart.
• She taught me to be expressive because she knew that I hated to express for the fear of being taken advantage of. She taught me to express when you know it is right and to do it before it gets too late.
• I could speak my heart out to her and cry like a baby infront of her. She would patiently listen and was always ready with open arms to give me the warmth of her hug.
• We felt each other’s pain and stood by each other in the toughest of phase that people at school life threw at us.
• We had endless conversations and the late night conversations that we had are my favorite ones till date.
• I have never had a soulmate (among friends) like her who would cry for me when I would be in pain. I had once got 10-12 stitches in my right hand wrist and I was still wearing a smile on my face, but it was she who was more worried about me and even cried seeing me in that state. That’s the moment that really touched my heart and I felt blessed. She would ensure that I had my meals and at times would even feed me with the spoon as I could barely hold it. Once my stitches got opened and my wrist began bleeding because we were happily quarreling over a coke(soft-drink) bottle and I held back my tears so that she doesn’t feel guilty about it. That was the mutual understanding and love we had for each other.
• We knew the feelings of each other by simply looking at each other’s eyes. Words were merely spoken and silence was beautifully understood of when exactly the other person needed a hug or a sweet kiss to make her feel better and come out of a gloomy day.
• Ever since we became friends, we were always awaiting for the vacations to end and meet each other soon. Having distant apart during the vacations killed us from within and we counted every single day to pass by soon because we just wanted to be with each other despite knowing the fact that once we graduate from school, it will all be different and it would be tough to manage this long distance never ending friendship intact with the same essence.

Yes! my school life was a roller-coaster ride because of her presence in my life and I look back to it even today with a smile. It’s one of the best things that had happened to me in the boarding school. Well, our friendship did have alot of ups and downs but here we are still sailing it strong.

After 2006, the reality struck hard on me of coping up with this long distance friendship and I knew I would always miss her hug, I would always miss that friend who even understood my silence, I would miss her for not being there to make me sleep assuring that everything will be fine and that she is there around me, I knew I would miss her alot for everything and every memory that we made. I would miss her for always managing to give me something sweet when I most needed it or at times when it was asked for.

And she had a special way of making me drink water (which I wonder from where she learnt it) and I had loved every bit of it. Never have I shared any of these memories with anyone else in life because some firsts are meant to be that way and only with the same person. And I miss it all😔

We did move on in our lives after that and got too busy with our new set of friends that we made along the path but somehow I always tried in between to call her up or message her through various social media platforms. Somehow, she never reciprocated with the same feeling or didn’t even revert back to my messages and it was then that I began to see our friendship drift apart. It then felt to me as though, I could no longer hold it single handedly and that feeling gave me immense pain. It’s said that in a relationship of any kind- It’s always that one person gives more than it gets and here it was me who was only giving it and not getting it. It was then that I realized that the essence had faded away. We made numerous close friends, best friends and even fell in love in our respective lives and even managed through the ups and downs of life with the new circle of people that we had allowed to enter in our lives.

Over the years, we only shared a few messages and it was because I was always the one to initiate. Since her bday also came before mine I made sure to convey my love and wishes to her and felt as though she would do the same on my bday out of obligation. Years passed by and it was on Dec.2015 when I met her in Delhi along with 2 others. I was back then trying to recover from a broken relationship and had missed her immensely for I knew if she was there just beside me, I would sail through the fall easily. I had tried really hard to avoid the get-together for I knew I would cry like a baby and would hug her really tightly and also because I thought that she had changed and the essence of friendship that we had back in our childhood wasn’t the same for her any longer. So in a battle between my head and heart where the former was telling me to not meet her because of my insecurities and the later was telling me to go and meet the only person and friend whom I have missed all these years -Obviously, the heart won!

I tried to be inexpressive because I wasn’t meeting her alone but over a small get together and had hence just observed her during the entire get together. I wanted to read her eyes, I wanted to read her gestures, I wanted to know if she still valued me in her life as a friend, I wanted to know why she had not made an equal effort of being there in my life with the same essence. Yes! I did realize that we had missed out on a lot of what had happened in our lives over so many years but I was super happy now to see her as a married person and with the love of her life(It’s a blessing to get married to the person you love) but yet wanted to get the answers of where now did I stand in her priority list. Afterall, childhood best friends or say friends that touch the chords of your heart are always meant to be special no matter what may come and go.

Alas! I sat there asking none of the above and it was already time to say bye. That moment, tears rolled down my eyes- It had the pain of a broken heart(of loosing the guy I immensely fell in love with) and the silence of all the words and feelings I wanted to express to her as a friend and the fear of letting her go again. I cried and hugged her and though not much was said from my end, the magical words that she told me still echoes in my head- You know that ,I am always there for you, Right! And the warmth of the hug felt somewhat the same and I just knew that the essence of the friendship was being revived. It felt so heavy in the heart to see her go and I was scared that the essence of our friendship would again fade away from her side.

Dosti main Sukoon hai!

After that, the frequency of messages exchanged increased but again they were always from my end and she still seemed busy in reciprocating back.

March 30th, 2019, when I lost a person in my life who was a friend cum office colleague and I couldn’t even see her taking her last breath that I realized-I needed to connect back with my school friend and that life was very uncertain. I was encircled with the fear of what if I lose her and never ever get to express of what I felt for US and for our FRIENDSHIP, I was scared of loosing the friend who had always mattered the most in my life and whom I have immensely loved, I was scared that what if something happens to her and I don’t even know or get to see her in her last breath. All these insecurities and fear made me realize that no matter how much pain I have to bear in the single handedly friendship that I have to hold on to, I will…No matter if I have to be the person to just give it all and not get in return, I will still give holding all the pain of not getting the same unconditional love and concern from her end. It’s been pretty good so far and we have been talking despite being in different countries and she doesn’t put in much of an effort but she tries to put in the small efforts to make me smile when I complain and express my heart out.

Well, she is a mom to a 3 and a half year old kid and has an adorable family and I on the other hand am still looking for a perfect match. I just hope that someday she truly does value me as the friend she always did. However, she has often managed to steal some time from her super busy mommy schedule and has many a time comforted me and heard me when I have most needed it.

It’s just that alot has changed from her side as now her priorities have been different and I am still the person waiting to get my friend back with the same old essence.

I didn’t know we were making memories, I thought we were just having fun in the moment! Childhood Friendships can never be forgotten. They are the only ones to stay there!

No matter how busy life gets for you, I still do believe that if a friend matters alot to you and is in your priority list, you will always be able to make time for them. The tables have however, turned now: I am the more expressive one in this friendship and she now rarely does and that too through texts.

Ah! I hope someday I get this never ending friendship intact and with the same essence of love,respect, trust and care as it earlier was! I hope I can see the same old friend who was always there to pamper me.

Feel free to comment:

• If you have ever loved a friend this immensely.
• If my story has reminded you of your childhood friend
• If you have missed your best friend and have reconnected back after reading this and
• If this story has touched you!