I’d like to go back in time, retrace our steps, our words, say the right thing, and hey presto!
I’d like to go back in time, to those moments of heedless laughter, undiluted joy and the splendiferous privilege of sherbet-fed youth. Plan futures together. Share sweeties again. I loved the teensy little white ones, would save all the powder pink bonbons in the mixed bag for you. For later. Our peppermint deal.
I’d like to go back in time, to those moments of you and me against the whole wide world, when nothing else mattered, not even the rain or homework. Our friendship would last forever, we were oh so sure, BFFs until death, no other outcome imaginable. We lived in absolute certainty.
Was it something I said or didn’t say, or was it simply the fact that the braces that held our lives and teeth together for a while just had to come off at some point?
Almost half a decade later, I still wonder...
I often think of you. I am grateful that we were best friends in primary school. You were my very first, Heike. You made new friends easily. Me, not so much. Somehow you took a chance on me. I learned the rules of friendship from you, Chiquitita, and you taught me well. You showed me that it was possible for a clumsy, uncoordinated geek in hand-me-down clothes to be liked, even by a superlatively cool girl like you, because somehow, inexplicably, we each possessed what the other required to thrive.
When you were nine, your mum let you dye your hair blonde at home with her leftover products. No gloves, no instructions. You looked like a skunk with your platinum streaks, the bees knees. Your hair rocked. How I envied your rebellion. Also, and this was yet another shock to my core: you and your siblings were allowed to eat dinner in front of the television, you had foods like ‘cevapcici’ and you didn’t use cutlery, you just tucked in and enjoyed, while watching an American sitcom I had never even heard of.
This was absolute freedom. We spent entire afternoons on the swings outside putting the world right while we sang ‘Waterloo’ and ‘I have a dream’ at the top of our voices.
Knowing me, knowing you – things changed. It was never quite the same after primary school. We remained friends for a while. Then you went out with a boy who didn’t treat you nice. I should have said something, but you were besotted. Things got tricky after that. We lost touch. This was long before internet or smartphones. There was no big fallout, just a slow drift and suddenly, we didn’t need each other anymore. At all.
You went this way and I, the other.
Still, I am grateful. You showed me that true super trouper friendship was possible. I’ve never thanked you properly for what you have done, so this is for you, Heike. My first best friend. We had an amazing few years together! I often wonder if our friendship could have been salvaged, or whether it’s better left alone as a beautiful memory of ‘that was then and it was beautiful’. Sometimes, friendships don’t last, and it’s nobody’s fault.
You taught me that, too.
In the past fifty years I have heard many people in Karaoke bars sing their hearts out late at night. Let me tell you, Heike, nobody has ever come close to our two-piece rendition of ABBA’s greatest hits straight after school on those squeaky council playpark swings in the late 1970s!
Honey, honey! We were an awesome pair of Dancing Queens!