Читать книгу Sincerely About Us. Искренне о нас - Лана Лайт - Страница 7

Being friends with you for over 20 years (can you believe this?!) sometimes makes me feel like we’ve actually known each other for much MUCH longer… Besides, every time we meet up (I wish we would meet more often), time behaves strangely: it pretends not to have existed for the past few months – or years – making us believe we only saw each other a couple of days ago. Or even better: catching up with you brings out my teenage self who can laugh unabashedly and be as lively and carefree as I used to be, and that is invaluable. It’s also solid evidence that despite attending different high schools, then different universities, getting married, divorced, living in different cities, sometimes even countries, and having children, we haven’t changed that much since we first met as 13-year-old girls.

Coming to a new class after having had the same classmates for 7 years and seeing a multitude of mostly unfamiliar faces on the first day of school was quite overwhelming for me. You were in the same situation, of course, but as an extrovert, you seemed to be handling our new environment much better. That’s why your brown eyes not only reflected your intelligence but also a sense of calm and composure; combined with your pleasant smile, straight posture, and confident demeanor, you came across as one of the few approachable kids I had met. Given that there were only about 9 girls out of 25 students, it didn’t take long for us to become really close friends.

Surely, we had our differences: extrovert and introvert, lively and reserved, talkative and taciturn, confident and timid, Gemini and Capricorn, Spears and Aguilera, Nick and Brian (of the BSB); nevertheless, we always enjoyed each other’s company. I think there’s only one explanation for why we sometimes spoke ill of each other behind the other person’s back: as hormonal teenagers, we simply weren’t able to accept and embrace our differences for a while. But then, about 18 months into our bumpy friendship, we had such a lovely, long heart-to-heart conversation that it took the bond and trust between us to an absolutely awesome new level.

Another amazing aspect of our friendship is our similar taste in music and literature. For the longest time, you were the only person I knew who enjoyed and listened to a lot of foreign music, and had a solid command of English, enabling you to understand not only song titles but also lyrics, and even to sing along! This was in the pre-Internet era, so we had to listen to a song bit by bit, rewinding the tape a million times until we could have a more or less coherent version of the lyrics on our hands. The amount of green tea consumed in your kitchen or mine while discussing everything under the sun (mostly boys, of course) was simply astounding. And it must have been astronomical, the number of times you heard me say, “It’s all gonna be alright!” whenever you shared your worries.

What truly matters, however, is growing up alongside you and our “gang” during the most turbulent years of our teenage lives. We spent time together, celebrated the turn of the millennia, drank cheap beer and even cheaper wine, gossiped, admired Keanu’s chiseled brows as he woke up at his computer as Neo, excelled in school, got philosophical, dreamed about what the future might hold for us, got shut out of a classmate’s apartment barefoot, buried time capsules that we couldn’t find a year later… Ed Sheeran had a castle on the hill while we had a rundown stadium to hang out in. You’re one of the few people who raised me up in a way, and these things will stay with me forever, much like you and our timeless friendship.