A post for my childhood friends
Yesterday my old school friend Karen died and we are all gutted. I hadn’t seen her in years but we all reconnected a few years back on Facebook and had a reunion over the holidays. Sadly she didn’t come to this one. She would always be the first to virtually congratulate, commiserate or send love to any of us if needed, she was a truly caring and lovely person. This is not going to be a sad post, although this post is obviously inspired by the saddest of events and I offer my deepest sorrow to her husband and three beloved children. This post is to celebrate childhood friendships and how lucky I was to recently catch up with my oldest ( in years known and not their actual age) buddy’s again.
Over Christmas we caught up over a drink at the local pub, for some of us it’s 30 years since we’ve seen each other. It’s weird how the friendship bond between us all is still there, never broken, just dormant for a few years. It was great to laugh together, complete stories and memories that have had missing pieces for years, make plans for the future and generally enjoy being adults together.
Most of the guys I’ve know since I was 5, some before. It’s amazing to meet up with people you haven’t seen in decades and realise we can still enjoy hanging out. We have all most definitely had a lot happened in our lives since our school days, there’s huge chunks of time to catch up on – which we did, but we also enjoyed the comfort of remembering being small together. There’s only a very select amount of people in this world you can share memories of fish paste sandwiches, Princess Diana’s wedding, a strange man in the woods, arguing over who will be George Michael’s wife, British bulldog injuries and the “Order of the Desk” whilst having a beer.
That’s what makes school friends special, you get to know them as children when life is so much simpler, when you think that you’re going to make a fortune with your rose petal perfume company and marry Phillip Schofield and live in the country. You try your best to beat them in races at sportsday, win first prize in the drawing competition, cheat at pass the parcel so you get the prize, ruthlessly push each other out the way vying for the attention of the school heart throb, but at the end of the day none of that matters, you’re never going to fall out over it. Instead of talking about what’s wrong with the world you talk about Star Wars, Aha, Strawberry Shortcake and Garfield, and your favourite restaurant is the Happy Eater.
Seeing my friends again has made me remember that having crazy hopes and dreams for this world is good for the soul and Karen’s death has reminded me that life is so short. At the beginning of the year Karen was taking part in a pass it forward scheme to bring even more kindness to the world than she already did. I hope my friends and I can take on that legacy and complete the challenge for her.
Despite our bad news I look forward to our future now we are back in touch- Sara and I may not be developing that rose petal perfume company we started when we were little (but to be honest it was pretty hmmm) but my friend Sarah and I have vowed to open a pub at home together, we are determined. We’re still dreaming together but maybe this time we’ll make it come true, there’ll most definitely be space for everyone at the bar and Karen will always be remembered as the girl in the red shoes.
