My First Best Friend

On an entirely non-Mum, non-child related subject today, I've decided to take my lead from the very funny and clever Kerri Sackville and write about My First Best Friend. I started writing this on Monday and was interrupted and have only just had a chance/the energy to get back to it. This week has been full on with J traveling so all I've done in the evening is go to bed and watch Netflix!

I was particularly inspired to join in with this topic as I JUST found my half of the best friend charm we exchanged over twenty years ago. It's a broken half of a heart that says "BEST", and I can just imagine my seven year old self demanding that half, because that's the kind of kid I was.

Annoying.

But it's actually kind of a sweet story, our friendship. We met on the first day of Kindergarten and became fast friends - her name was Kylie and she was the cutest little thing with big coke bottle glasses and a short black bob, the shortest kid in the class to my tallest. We were best friends right up until high school, when she went to the local school and I traveled to a school in the city. But we always remained friendly and our parents are still great mates - we weren't ever the type to fight, given that our personalities were so opposite and we complemented each other well.

Here are some yarns about Kylie and I:

- When we were in Year One, my Mum found us giggling over a note we'd written that said "Jennifer H is a fukking bich". (Funnily enough I traveled on the bus with said Jennifer to high school every day and she was kind of a bich...)

- That same year I was in a bad accident at a local park that resulted in my then four year old brother saving my life by running to some local teenage boys for help. We were on the front page of the paper, and Kylie cut the picture out and hung it next to her bed, where it remained until we were pre-teens.

- Kylie's brother had a bed shaped like a car which, back in those days, was a pretty unique and super cool thing. I may have briefly developed a crush on him as I a) Developed a crush on most boys who spoke to me between ages 10 and 13 and b) Really liked that bed.

- One summer I stepped on an Oyster on the first day of holidays, got stitches and couldn't swim ALL SUMMER (it was probably a week or so in retrospect!). I still remember getting home with my Dad the day I got my stitches out and Kylie and my Mum jumping out from behind the door, with the news that I was going to Kylie's to swim in her brand new IN GROUND SALT WATER POOL (I also had a pool, it was above ground and not saltwater, therefore much less cool).

- We never had a fight.

- Kylie had a sister who, despite being about six years older than us, we gave SUCH a hard time and teased incessantly. She was just one of those easy targets. Her sister has three kids now and as far as I know the whole family still give her a hard time.

- We played on the same soccer team as teenagers despite going to different schools, and while she was gifted with a natural athletic ability I was around 175cm by age 13 and was gifted only with a positive attitude, but she still always passed me the ball and never gave me grief for my sporting ineptitude.

- Kylie's parents were INCREDIBLY racist, which sadly is a pretty common thing where I grew up. It's a small town, kind of in the middle of two big cities, predominantly white with a large indigenous population compared to many other areas. I never saw anyone of Asian heritage until I went to high school - maybe on a trip to the city or Queensland but certainly not in my town. My parents were some of the more liberal minded in the area and always taught us not to discriminate, so the sometimes racist humour of Kylie's family was pretty jarring to me, especially as they were people I spent a lot of time with and loved, really. But I think things like this, things I saw as a kid, have taught me to view things more in grey. I can't tolerate racism but equally I see that it's often lack of education and misinformation that shapes the views of otherwise kind people. I'd like to think that these days I would call them out on it, but I don't know if I'm that gutsy. 

Kylie and I gradually drifted apart over the years, we are COMPLETELY different in many ways but I guess kind of similar in terms of our upbringing and values. She is quite serious and not as out there as me, but I'm sure we would get along if we caught up.

Maybe we should.

Z x