This is my post for #memoirmomday prompt Have you ever lost a friendship that meant a lot to you? hosted by @ericvancewalton
As a child, I did not have many close friends that I could see every day because I lived so far away from everyone, so other than school. There were regulars who camped at Dad's campground but sometimes it would be months before I saw them. The girl in the above photo was one of my first friends, her name was Lisa, I do not remember her last name. When they camped, we were together all day. I have thought about her but lost contact after we had to move. I wondered if her family still came there to camp.
When she would be camping and Bill our boar hog would get out of his pen, she always went with me to get him and put him back in the pen. The other campers would stay back and stare at these two little girls herding this huge hog with 4 inch tusks, down the road. He was a friendly pig.
When we moved to Missouri I made friends with the girl that lived closest to me. We were very close we went to the same school, we had lunch together and she had a car so we spent every weekend driving around the mountain, that was the only thing to do in Missouri. I spent many nights at her house. We saw each other every day. We even stayed friends when I found out that she was an old girlfriend of the guy I was dating.
We were 16 and her boyfriend's best friend was getting married so we went to his bachelor party. On the way home, I was in the backseat, she was driving, her boyfriend was in the front and his friend was in the front seat. We did not go straight home, we got more drinks and drove around. I passed out in the backseat. The next thing I knew she was pulling me out of the car by my hair. Her boyfriend was in the backseat with me. She was screaming at me, I do not remember how I got home but she would never talk to me again. To this day I do not understand why her boyfriend was in the backseat with me or why she did not stop the car when he got back there. Why didn't he stay in the front with her and the other guy get in the back? I recently found her on social media and asked her these questions and she would not give me any answers, she would only say she did not know. I know if it was my boyfriend and he wanted to get in the backseat with her, I would not have allowed it, and if he did, I would have kept an eye on him, with her being passed out. Losing her friendship was very hurtful and not getting the answers I wanted was just as hurtful, she was my first true friend. Needless to say, our friendship did not get rekindled.
After that, I made friends with another girl and we had many fun times, I remember one thing we did was on the last day of school we had a bunch of firecrackers and on the bus ride home we kept lighting them and throwing them out of the bus window, The bus driver did not try to stop us, I guess he thought it was fun, too. When I moved away, we lost touch, and about 5 years ago I found out that she died from cancer, this hit me hard and I felt so bad that I never reached out to her and I was not there for her when she went through that. This is one of my biggest regrets.
Now I do not have any close friends, I have friends, but I would not say they are my ride-or-die kind of friends, they are more social friends, like, Hi how have you been, that is good, see you later type of friends.
photos are mine