(back)

Friendship

Rachael and I made plans to wear dark colored jeans and white flip-flops, to meet at the mall. We were going to buy matching shirts for the Mariah Carey concert we were going to attend that night.

I drove myself to the mall and Rachael's parents dropped her off, so we could meet inside Forever 21. When we saw each other outside of the store, we gave each other a big hug, and became even more excited than before.

With huge smiles, we walked into the store ready to find the perfect top to complete our matching outfits! In our excitement to find the precise top, we split up to search the store even faster. Once we completed our search of the store we met in front of the dressing rooms to compare.

We each had only picked up two or three shirts, and were completely ecstatic with one. The top Rachael and I were happy with in our own piles was in fact the same shirt. Once we saw that we had the same shirt in our hands, we looked at each other and started laughing.

Rachael and I are such close friends that this incident is just one of many when we have had the same taste in clothing or in food. We even tend to finished each other's sentences.

I guess it was only natural for Garrett and I to become friendly first. He was about two and a half and I was one and a half when our families became friends. Rachael, Garrett's baby sister, was just turning six months old. Garrett and I played together all the time and by the time I was seven Garrett had proposed to me, and we were "married" one hot summer day with one of the neighborhood kids officiating at the not-even-five-minute ceremony.

I guess we thought we were pretty cool because he was a boy and I was a girl and we were best friends and didn't think the opposite sex had cooties. We would play outside and when the weather was too hot we played a lot of board games inside one of our homes. We really didn't talk about much except when we were teasing Rachael.

We lived just a couple of blocks away from Garrett and Rachael and our families had been friends ever since we had moved to Tucson in 1988. When we first moved to Tucson we lived in the same townhouse development where we met one day at the community pool.

Our moms seemed to hit it off right away as well as the dads, even though my parents were ten years older. Our family would always be invited to join their large extended family on all the important holidays. We really appreciated this because we didn't have any family here in Tucson to be with during the holidays.

Garrett and I would always find something to do during this occasion that would require us to not include Rachael. Year after year Garrett and I would play, and do everything we could to avoid having to include or watch after his "baby sister."

Garrett would tell Rachael that she was a crybaby and to leave us alone. Even after all these years I can still hear my voice: "Rachael you are such a baby. Why don't you go to your room and leave us alone?" Sounds pretty cruel doesn't it? As we grew older the same scene was repeated many times for Rachael was always the baby sister.

Garrett and I had become best friends and little Rachael just wanted to play with her older brother and his friend Elise. Ten years later, my oldest and closest friend is the girl I had teased so cruelly, and I ironically have hardly anything to talk about with Garrett when we see each other.

What had happened? Garrett and I grew apart and I think it was inevitable as the things 'boys' are interested in doing sharply diverged from what 'girls' are interested in. Meanwhile, Rachael was becoming more and more mature and by the time she was seven and I was eight, we were the best of friends, playing with dolls and everything else that interest kids of that age.

The close friendship between Rachael and I has only strengthened over the years and we often laugh about how Garrett and I had teased her when we were younger. When we share these memories I am always a little embarrassed about how nasty I was to her and wonder if Rachael's laughter is disguising how hurt she really was.

These memories have stayed with me over the years and I think I know why. Friendships change as we change. We need to be careful about how we act toward other people, no matter the circumstances, because we never know when the very person we have treated so badly, will turn out to be our best friend

Article provided by