Your childhood best friend

[SnuggleBuggles]

Tell me about your best friend from childhood. Are you still friends? What is your relationship like? When and how has it changed over the years, if applicable? If you aren't friends, when and how did your relationship end?

I just had a chance to visit my childhood best friend. We were more like sisters- sometimes we got along great, other times we fought and weren't as close. We were the closest each of us had to a sister and we did everything growing up together. We haven't lived in the same place since high school so we usually end up just exchanging emails from time to time and visiting about 1-2 times/ year. We have not had much in common in the years since we graduated high school. She went on to earn her PhD and work while I got married and started a family. When we have gotten together we weren't very close and it was our shared history that really held us together. There were always things that made it obvious we grew up together as we had similar feelings about a lot of things though.

She finally had her first baby. Now that we have the motherhood thing in common it was so easy to see why we were so close and how she still is like a sister to me. Loved that we watch the same shows, have the same hobbies and share many views on life. I totally loved watching her as a mom and connecting with her on that level. Maybe we have always had the same similarities these past years but haven't had long enough to talk about them. Something about hanging out for a whole weekend while she nursed and we chatted gave us a lot of time to reconnect.

Anyway, visiting her made me feel nostalgic and wonder if anyone else is still in touch with their best friend from childhood.

Beth

[tmahanes]

My BF and I live about 5 mins away from each other. We have been BF for 24 years since we were 4. There were times when we were younger that we went through phases and we not as close. We are at different places in our lives but we have been there for each other for every thing! We joke about buying land and building a house with 2 wings to live in. :)

Sent from my Ally using Tapatalk

[MontrealMum]

Yes, I'm still friends with my childhood best friend. Going on 37 years now :) We met in preschool. Her mom had just had another baby and was looking for someone to rideshare/carpool with, so the teachers introduced our moms since we lived in the same neighborhood. (since it was a private school people came from all over town) We clicked instantly and have been best friends ever since. She's outgoing and social while I'm quieter and academic. She's older ;) You'd never know it but we have tons in common and have the same opinions on many things. Even though she lives back in my hometown and I'm up here in Canada we are still each others' go-to person. Whenever we get together in person we are right back where we started...no matter that it's two very different careers, both married, and 3 kids later, it's as if nothing has changed. I cannot imagine my life without her.

I am also still extremely close with several other childhood friends that I reconnected with via FB of all places, as well as 2 friends from jr. high, and 2 from college/grad school. I don't make friends easily because I am still somewhat shy, but when I do, I tend to keep them forever :)

[SnuggleBuggles]

I don't make friends easily because I am still somewhat shy, but when I do, I tend to keep them forever :)


Me too. I have been adding a few new friends to the fold over the years and once in the fold I hope they;ll be around long term!!

Beth

[WatchingThemGrow]

I love my childhood best friend. She lives 6 hours away, has a girl in college and one in high school. She got married way early, prayed for me for YEARS, then I got married late. So, NOW, when we get to visit (maaaaybe once a year) it seems like we are sisters. We don't get to talk on the phone like we used to (when I was single) but now I get what she has gone through all these years.
She is just awesome. We still sign emails with "LYLAS" so that will tell you when we became friends. (Yes, it was 1981.) We were friends in the same locale for 4 years, then 26 apart. She is currently selling breast pumps at her work, although when her kids were born, nobody breastfed where she lived.

[lmh2402]

my childhood friends were two sisters - one my year, one the year below. i met the sister in my grade on the first day of second grade.

we are still very close in that the relationship picks up with ease and familiarity, and there are no topics off limits for discussion or challenging/calling each other out on

but... we don't connect often at all anymore

well, that is to say we haven't connected in the last 6 months. and it's my fault, i've been in a weird funk/stress since the move and have mostly shut people out...

we've gone through these phases before and it always picks up, but i stress it 'til we're back on a "regular" (even if infrequent) pattern of communication

[vludmilla]

I am still best friends with my very first best friend who I met in 1st grade. We had a period of time during college years when we lost touch but we both really regretted that and there was no good reason for it except that we were both dealing with a lot of separate personal/family issues. We've agreed that we never want to lost touch like that again and remark about how much even though we've grown and changed over the years, we seem to be on the same developmental/social trajectory and share similar values. We expect to be friends for life. It's a special thing.

[Ceepa]

I just talked to her! :love-retry:

We had drifted apart for a while when we went to separate colleges and were working on careers but reconnected as we were settling down and into motherhood. Just as you said, suddenly we had so much more in common and everything fell right back into place.

[vludmilla]

my childhood friends were two sisters - one my year, one the year below. i met the sister in my grade on the first day of second grade.

we are still very close in that the relationship picks up with ease and familiarity, and there are no topics off limits for discussion or challenging/calling each other out on

but... we don't connect often at all anymore

well, that is to say we haven't connected in the last 6 months. and it's my fault, i've been in a weird funk/stress since the move and have mostly shut people out...

we've gone through these phases before and it always picks up, but i stress it 'til we're back on a "regular" (even if infrequent) pattern of communication

I think I understand this very well. I have a friendship like this, though not my childhood best friend, still she is a very close friend. I feel like I could have written your post. I'm sorry that you experience this but it helps me to see that other people go through this too as I end up beating myself up about it when this happens in our friendship (meaning I don't stay in touch for various reasons...)

[malphy]

I was the baby of 7. I did not go to kindergarten as my mom could not bear to let me go.

So the first day of first grade arrives and my mother and oldest sister are in tears. I run off and hold hands with Sandy, a cute chinese girl. We ran off together and didn't look back.

We were friends until she moved away during 6th grade. I always missed her. She was so sweet and her mom was so cute. She spoke no english and they had no forks in the house so that is how I learned to use chopsticks.

Sandy was pretty, smart, funny and nice.

[ellies mom]

I became friends with my best friend from childhood when we were seven (I'm 41 now). Our families were really close as well. We lived on the East Coast. My senior year, I moved to the West Coast. We are still in contact but unless one of us is on the other's coast, it is mostly birthday and Christmas cards. We are friends on FB but she isn't on very often although her mom and I are Farmville neighbors. When we do get together, it is like no time has passed since the last time we saw each other.

[twowhat?]

My childhood BF was the daughter of my mom's BF, so we hung out. A lot. We started to grow apart in HS and now we're friends on FB but I don't talk to her regularly. Our lives are so divergent and we have so little in common now...so when I do see her (at family gatherings), it's not as if we picked up where we left off.

Now my closest friends are those who have more in common with me. As in, those who have kids:)

[JBaxter]

I still talk to Linda a couple times a year she lives near where my mom does ( home town)

[sste]

I have posted here in the past about my friendship "divorce" from my best friend growing up. It has been almost ten years and I am STILL upset about it. We had a falling out and it seemed like we were going to recover from that and I certainly apologized up and down and tried to make amends. But, two very bad things happened right after that. She started dealing with infertility and has remained without kids for 7 years. And she decided at some point to pursue almost my exact career track but later in life and she has been hung up in grad school and now I don't think can find a job because academic markets are extremely tight. I believe there would have been hope for a friendship recovery if things were better for her on either front. I have since found out she has stopped speaking to virtually all of our childhood friends . . . certainly all the women with babies. I am sad for her. :(

I still email her once every year or two to check in. These emails are awkward because I feel like I can't mention my new baby or my son or getting tenure and what's left is pretty generic. I have never heard back from her and will probably end up with a restraining order against me some day soon.

[MontrealMum]

I still email her once every year or two to check in. These emails are awkward because I feel like I can't mention my new baby or my son or getting tenure and what's left is pretty generic. I have never heard back from her and will probably end up with a restraining order against me some day soon.
:hug: The kid/no kid divide is much larger than I'd ever imagined. Although I do have several female friends w/o kids, and who will not be having them, in some cases the issue, I think, is insurmountable in terms of the friendship. I ended a more casual, recent friendship because of it (more like I let things slowly peter out) because my friend just could not deal with my pregnancy. It just about killed me to do it, but both friends have to work towards making a friendship work. And that just doesn't always happen.

[Uno-Mom]

I reconnected because I joined Facebook and got pregant around the same time! Turns out my childhood BFF is now a childbirth educator. So you can imagine we had LOTS to talk about!

We haven't really gotten close again. We're just so busy. But it's delightful to connect over FB and the occasional get-together. She's got the same super-fun personality as when we were kids.

[lalasmama]

Her name was Kimmy. She was the wild child I dreamed of being when we were young. She didn't have a problem telling an adult what she thought. I wore my hair like Farrah Facett into the late 80s to avoid hurting my mom's feelings; speaking up to an adult was something I just.could.not.do! She was a foster child living with an older couple (like really older--their kids had kids older than Kimmy). Eventually, she ended up moving in with her boyfriend (at 15yo). She had a hard time staying around and being dependable. To be fair, she hadn't really experienced those qualities apart from her foster family of 3 years... so we grew apart when she just didn't show up for a "girl's day" when she said she would. Never knew where she was or when she would be around. The last time we saw each other was when we were 18 or so, right after her HS graduation.

I've tried finding her on facebook without luck :( I'd love to know what happened to her. Really, I just hope something good happened in her life. She had a rough start. She was a smart, beautiful young woman, always smiling and laughing, so personable, but those were things no one but my family ever told her. All she wanted was love and attention, so when the boys started looking at her, she followed.

I miss Kimmy. The best friend that I made after Kimmy is still my best friend. DD calls my BFF auntie. Me and current BFF have been through a ton of crap together, and she will always be my BFF, but I still miss Kimmy.

[kijip]

I had dinner with my childhood best friend and her husband earlier this year. We reconnected when her parents came to my mom's funeral just before she moved back to the states and they passed on my information to her and she reached out to extend her condolences. Our relationship never really ended formally before that, but she went to a religious high school and college while I went to a hippie high school and did the Seattle public college circuit. She ended up in Eastern Europe and then South America as a a missionary about the time I started started working in nonprofit management and was married with a toddler.

We went in very different directions in many ways but are similar in others. The main difference is religious for her and political for me. She is very religious and has moved in a much more conservative direction from the community we shared as children whereas I have moved to a less conservative, liberal, open and affirming community. Also, I am far more political than her and our politics are exceedingly different and always have been. I am also at my very core not an evangelical person. I believe that there is more than one path to the same destination. She is very religiously minded, and does not get too involved in politics but her views are pretty conservative, though less so than before. She went to a Christian college followed by 2 bible colleges overseas and a number of years as a missionary. Her missionary time seems to havre liberalized her view of foreign policy and economic justice issues. She now works at a religious college as an admin and her husband is studying English and going to college here in the states. They don't have kids. So our lives are very, very different. I guess the main similarity is that we have both centered our lives in the social services.

We have not seen each other much since then, and I don't know that we will. It is comfortable but strangely uncomfortable to see where we are at in relation to each other. Some of my views, which I am sure she knows of even though we did not discuss them, are pretty out there to her and she was aware of our open and affirming church affiliation which did raise an eyebrow. I work for a pretty aggressively progressive organization that takes some very lefty stances on certain issues so there is just a huge, huge amount of difference. The language that we speak is different and we lack a shared cultural reference point as we are each immersed in things that are directly at odds with each other. Totally non religious things are different even...music, books, news sources, hobbies, slang, clothing. I know that we each deeply respect the other and value our history together. But in the here and now we have very little that we can talk about.

[JoyNChrist]

My childhood best friend is now my hairdresser. :)

We're still friends, although not really "best friends." We hang out and talk on the phone occasionally. We've each helped the other with some business stuff. She's happily married and is an excellent mother to her two-year-old son.

I'm grateful to still have her in my life.

[niccig]

Emma. We lost touch when my family moved interstate. Our parents are still friends and send the occasional letter/phone call.

I'm still friends with HS friends. We don't see each other often as live in different countries, but we pick up where we left off when we get together. We don't stress if there's a period of time without contact - we get that we're all busy.

[momof2girls]

My childhood BF lives in the same state as me though we only see each other every few yrs. We grew apart in high school but our moms were always and still are close friends.

[Globetrotter]

I reconnected with my BF from elementary school. She lives half way across the world, and I found we had nothing in common :( I almost wish we hadn't reconnected because at least then I would have that fantasy.

I think she has a drinking problem, or something, or at least she is obsessed with drinking and partying (but of course people only project certain things on FB, so who knows?).

[mackmama]

I lived within walking distance of her. We went everywhere together. We went to different high schools but still hung out a lot and went over to each other's houses every Christmas day. We lost touch when we went to college. We reconnected when her mother passed away. We don't have a lot in common anymore, but I really appreciate our shared history.

[mommylamb]

The person I consider to be my childhood best friend is someone I met when I was 12, so not super young. We're still really close friends, though we don't talk as much as we'd like. She's a PT WAHM who up until a couple months ago was also finishing her college degree after a long hiatus. And, she is pregnant with #4 and looking to find a FT job using her degree. I'm a FT WOHM with a hellish commute, so between our hectic schedules, finding the time to talk is difficult. But I love her like a sister and always will. No matter how long it has been since the last time we talked, we always fit right back in with each other. It helps that we both have kids. Her twins are the same age as my DS. It also helps that our husbands get along really well. I think her husband is a wonderful, wonderful guy. But they live in Massachusetts.


:hug: The kid/no kid divide is much larger than I'd ever imagined. Although I do have several female friends w/o kids, and who will not be having them, in some cases the issue, I think, is insurmountable in terms of the friendship.

:yeahthat: I so totally agree with this. My closest friend from college time (we didn't actually go to college together, but we were on the same study abroad program junior year) and I rarely talk at all, and when we do it's always a little strained. We love each other, there is no doubt. but our lives are so different. She's in graduate school and lives on the West Coast so our schedules are really different, plus the time change. She doesn't have kids, and though she's engaged, I'm not sure if she will decide to have them (she's gay, so obviously there are some additional hurtles to having kids, which of course aren't insurmountable by any means, but her fiance is a lot older and I'm not sure it will happen).

[liz]

My best friend and I are still very close. We try to see each other as often as we can, but sadly a couple of months can go by without us seeing/talking to each other. But when we do see each other, we can pick up where we left off and talk the night away :).

She isn't married and does not have kids, but that hasn't stopped us from staying connected. I have lots of acquaintances and friends, but she is closer to me than anyone else I know (besides DH of course). I don't know what I would do without her.

Slightly OT, but I did have a friend who I became super close to in high school (while still maintaing my friendship with my BFF). She was really spirited and funny and loud - and eventually really exhausting to be around. We kind of "broke up" and that was a very painful time. Oddly, she is still really good friends with my BFF, so I still see her occasionally.

[maydaymommy]

HE is a fastidious, uptight, fairly anxious, pretty high-profile plastic surgeon in the city we grew up in. We lived across the street from eachother starting when I was in 2nd grade and he was in 1st. I taught him how to ride a bike, he taught me how to climb a tree. We spent years outside playing together. He's an only child and I was until I was 12. As we got older we had some tense times, as well as awkward and embarrassing situations. We remained close, with lots of bickering, through middle school when I would "go" with his friends and he with mine. There were lots of slumber parties scheduled on the same night and some harmless sneaking out.

We grew apart through highschool, even though he started going to my private school and dated my close friend in 9th & 10th grade. I don't remember having contact with him during college at all, and it was probably because I was very scarred by things that happened between us when we were young, and stupid. That was all I associated him with for well over a decade.

Now, thanks to fb, we're back in touch and I choose to remember the shared positive experiences. We had a similar upbringing with hippie parents who were very out of place, especially in our very conservative area. We both just wanted parents who were like everyone else's.

I've really had a great time corresponding with him. We're both married w/2 little ones. We have nothing in common in so many ways, but there are so many memories. He stresses about his job, the pressure, his disappointment in his parents and their lack of support. It's just such an odd dynamic when we write back and forth - he's constantly trying to find out if I meant something negative about him or if my sarcasm was making fun of him. It's weird.

[kerridean]

She is the most annoying, self-centered person I know. On facebook, she only talks about herself. She cheated on her husband last year, left him, and already has a new boyfriend. I feel so sad for her 2 young girls. She had a boob job last year and insists on posting pictures of herself weekly on FB of herself in low cut shirts. UGH. I simply cannot stand her.

[plusbellelavie]

My childhood best friend and I "met" when he was 4mths old and I was a newborn! His mother was my older sister Girl Scout leader and she adopted him (another beautiful story but for another day) even though he had cerebral palsy. My mother use to take care of him regularly for a variety of reasons so we "grew up " together until the day the summer before second grade when my family moved across country. We were not allowed to be in the same class in Kindergarten or 1st Grade because they felt he was too "dependent" on me and I was too "protective" of him but we saw each other at recess and were inseparable! My family has very fond memories of the two of us together...I taught him how to ride a bike even though the doctors didn't want him too because if he fell and hit his head it could be very serious for him (but it became a sport he loved to do and in his teens and 20s rode in many races now he just does it for fun) and the summer before my family moved to CA we apparently promised each other that when we grew up we would get married and be together forever and then we sealed it with a kiss (although according to by older brothers and sisters it was more then one kiss!);)

We have stayed in contact over these 40+ yrs! First when we were young with letters, small gifts, etc every few months and periodic phone calls (thanks to our moms!). As we got older it was more sporadic mainly through HS/college/grad school for me but for sure 3xs a year (our birthdays and Christmas we always send a card on those days). Now I would say it is monthly that we email...he is now on FB but I am not...he was always more advance then I in trends...I think he even does twitter! He is married to such a beautiful woman and they have tons of family support! It was a real joy to see their relationship blossom even from far away! Even with his "disability" he always wanted to find "love" and he did!

He is a wonderful man and he taught me so much about friendship and life! I am very lucky to have him in my life!

[momm]

It's totally bizarre that you posted this.
I dreamt of my childhood best friend last night and lay awake this morning nursing, thinking of her and best friends to follow.

She lived in the apartment above me and we played every evening together. Back then - 1980s - phones and stuff weren't so popular and we lost touch when we moved. I wish I knew her last name so I could look her up on Facebook.

My best friends in early school years, too, I have lost touch with. Same way.

It's so weird that I was thinking all this and yours was the first post I saw when I logged on this morning

Bizarre. I would ask if you were in my mind, but you posted this as I slept off, so prob before I dreamt :)

[lizzywednesday]

My childhood BFF and I met when our moms were in either a LLL group or church-sponsored mass-playgroup ... so we've pretty much always known each other.

We were fairly inseparable all through grammar school, but her parents wouldn't let her go to the public high school I was planning to attend, so we kind of drifted apart. Especially after they pulled her out of her high school (all-girls Catholic high school with no resources to challenge a kid as bright as my friend) and homeschooled her for her high school diploma & sent her off to college in Ohio.

We really ended up on the outs after I graduated from high school - she was supposed to be my ride to my graduation party at another friend's house but she flaked on me. For a guy she'd just met.

I didn't speak to her for almost a year after that, I was so hurt.

We managed to reconnect during college and have been on-again-off-again close since her son was born, but not close like we were. We are FB friends, which allows me to see updated photos of her DS, who is one of the cutest little kids on this earth, and we get to share memories - like Halloween trick-or-treating stories. (Her DS wanted to be a Ghostbuster for Halloween this past year, which we found hilarious because when we were 6, we were Ghostbusters. The movie had come out the summer before we were in the 1st grade and I thought it was the best movie ever.)

My high school BFF is still my BFF and was my maid of honor at my wedding. We see each other at least once a year (though last year we didn't because of all the medical crap with DD) and her DD calls me Aunt Liz ... and I refer to her as Aunt Sara to my DD.

[amldaley]

We met on the first day of first grade. I went home and told my mom how good she was at coloring. We remained best friends until I moved away between 7th & 8th grade. We kept in touch loosely over the years and now, as grown ups, we have managed to meet up once and Facebook with each other often.

We have different lifestyles and viewpoints but the connection is still there - she was a wonderful friend to me, even as a small child and she remains a good friend now. She is thoughtful and funny and she knows a side of me that almost no one else does.

I am so fortunate that someone who witnessed so much of my young life is still around when I need to re-live the days when all I wanted to do was be a Solid Gold Dancer and Private Investigator.