What I’ve Learned From a Forty-Year Friendship

Photo by Taylor Smith on Unsplash

There’s something so special to being a testament to someone else’s growth, to bearing witness to their soul sprouting forth from an unsteady youth towards a confident future self. Then that gift comes rippling back for your own benefit. It’s awe-inspiring, this imagining of souls.

My Bestie and I met our first year of high school, when I was thirteen and she was fourteen, coming from less than favorable backgrounds. Our home lives were tough to say the least and we both felt the pressure of carrying that burden. We’d each been shut out of social circles and bullied, so there was some trauma bonding happening, but mostly I remember we spoke a lot in silence. Typically that’s a very masculine approach to life and keeping company, yet it worked for us. Perhaps there was enough mutual understanding happening. Or maybe we just liked the quiet.

Neither of us remember meeting the other one. It’s like we picked up the conversation mid-sentence and had always been friends. The how of it escapes us to this day. Funny.

And it doesn’t matter. We were there for each other’s destruction, when we’d somewhat drop out of contact because we were ashamed to have the other see the bad choices we knew we were about to make. We fought and took time away to cool off. We came together for family time Sundays, crowding with chosen…