Being shifted from one place to another, I never had the luxury of having the same set of friends all through my little journey of passion-crazy life. The consequences had their negatives and positives.
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I could never actually bond with any of my friend, for bonding is a continuous process and one which takes several years, something not achievable in two-three years. By the time stability did arrive in my life, I was already at an age where bonding had already been made, an age where “friending” was not that easy, and acquaintances were something I was not interested in.
As for the positives, there aren’t many; except for maybe the fact that I could meet so many different personalities and know how to handle each one.
As I grew up, the thirst of bonding, the thirst of letting someone know my deepest secrets and desires only grew. With all the people around me, I could only think of my childhood friends, three friends who I hadn’t met in six-seven years; enough time for me to forget everything about them except their first names.
Though I tried to find them again through social networking sites, every effort was futile. Taking solace from my efforts, I had given up hope of any contact with them, but one day a friend request on Facebook changed everything. Of course, due to the gap of communication for a decade or so, conversations weren’t easy to come by. Even so, the happiness that was instilled in me by the thought of meeting them again was a happiness I rarely felt.
In a nutshell, childhood friends are the best.
You may not realize it now, but at a certain point in life the realization will hit you. When did I have the realization? Well it’s a little hazy, but I suppose that the abstract from a portion of my memory may give you a glimpse to the direction from where I am coming.
Its about the time I visited Manali, India with my college friends. One night, we had a competition, who could drink 8 glasses of whiskey, or maybe wine, consecutively. What happened 20-30 minutes after we started is a vague memory. I just remember I had drunk messaged a lot of people. My exes, friends, crushes, no one was spared that night. It was just one of those days when the calm, composed me had lost the grip on things; willingly of course. When I woke up the next day and read those messages, two had been to my childhood friends. It was a simple “I love you” message, with a “as a friend” phrase after it. One to a boy, one to a girl.
That day after drunk messaging him and reading his reply later, I understood that we had come a long way from the time I had to buy sweets for him to keep him as my friend to the present where my subconscious could message him my true feelings without feeling vulnerable.
It was in that moment of realization that I understood why childhood friends are the best friends that one could possibly have. Yes, my other friend was perhaps a little shy, perhaps a little embarrassed, or perhaps just didn’t know how to react because she and I hadn’t met for 14 years. We didnt know what we really wanted from each other, we didnt really know who the other person truly was anymore, but then there is nothing that a box of sweets can’t resolve; and my friendship with my childhood friends is sweet, as it hopefully always will be.
Maybe you get it, maybe you don’t.
Photo credit: Bipradeep Baidya/Flickr