Pushed Apart
From the age of 2, Michelle had been my best friend. We were troublemakers, Rugrats, and truly inseparable. One of my first memories with her was decorating a Barbie house in green St. Patty’s day decor in hopes of alluring a Leprechaun. We shared a love of art, bugs, and taping things to walls. And as we developed, so did our friendship.
In early grade school I really started to come out of my shell, but Michelle was always more mild-mannered and shy. I started to play soccer and she joined too, but she liked to pick daisies in the corners of the field. After school we would build forts, watch Star Wars, play school and spend all of our hours together. Our families were friends so we spent all weekends together and went on vacations together.
In Intermediate School, she got braces and I just got taller. In the 4th grade we made the decision to marry our little siblings. We had it on the back deck of her house, with pizza as the wedding cake and a trip to the playset as their honeymoon. We were creative together and always had the most spontaneous ideas.
But as we came into that tween age and into middle school, we grew apart. She had been acting different towards me for months but the real break came when we were at a mutual friend’s birthday party. We liked to tease one another and so my friend and I hid from Michelle when she went upstairs. After returning to the basement, we scared her and then got promptly cussed out and screamed at, and then Michelle left. That was in the 6th grade, and by the 7th grade, she was an entirely different girl. She was loud, popular with boys and not nice to me. I was not part of her crowd and happily so. She started to get in trouble with boys and school and from there we went on different paths, but I never thought much of it besides the fact that we grew apart. I remember hearing rumors at school that she was pregnant and never knowing what to think.
As we grew into high schoolers, my mom would update me on how Michelle was doing once in awhile. It began Freshman year with “oh her mom told me that Michelle dyed her hair for the 5th time this week” or “she broke up with her new boyfriend”. But as time passed, more concerning reports got back to me, and I would also see her at school with kids that I knew were trouble. I would wave, and she would say hello back. My shallow attempt at being kind to her always made me feel like I should have been doing more to reach out. She would disappear from school for weeks, and my mom told me that Michelle would scream at her mom, refuse to eat, and convert to a new religion weekly. Our family was worried for her, and so was her own. There seemed to be no answer to her cries for help; no one understood.
The answer finally came junior year when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and had been so extremely depressed that she had to be hospitalized. This was a turning point for her and her family though, and she has been able to try and take control of her life ever since.
I have not been able to rekindle our lost friendship, but we have become friends again. I have her on snapchat and went to her graduation party - it was the first time I was in her house in 6 years. Although I had been absent from her life for so long, she still greeted me with a big hug as I entered and her family welcomed me with joy.
I regret ever judging her for changes in her behavior that were beyond her control. We were able to reconnect and I am grateful for that, but hopefully someday we can try to make up for those lost years.