A Few Thoughts on Friends part 2

Most of my memories and how my friendships grew revolve around Jeremy though. He was the one I spent most of my time with, we were practically inseparable. For about 4 years we were usually no more than an arms reach apart in class or otherwise and I didn't find out until later the school principal kept us together on purpose.

The other reason Jeremy and I formed such a close bond was because for 4 long years Jeremy was bullied by a kid in our class. It's hard to explain how a friendship develops under that kind of stress (at least that's how I perceive it) it was also unusual because I was friends with a girl named Amy who was friends with the bully. This put an unusual amount of strain on everything because the 4 of us had formed an odd sort of tight little group. I later referred to this like 2 armies under a truce, everything was fine with the 4 of us, until the boy, Robbie said something to or about Jeremy, then I would get upset and so on and so on. That's how it was most of the time in elementary school, I was more than a little relieved when we changed schools when we went to middle school.

The next stage of the progression of my school year friendships was with a girl named Heather. We were friends for a few years before we eventually grew apart when we were in college. Heather was more or less dropped into my life. The vice principal of the middle school at the time had put her at the lunch table with Jeremy and me one day and things went from there. It was kind of like how Jeremy and I had met, although we weren't instantly inseparable.

I cared about Heather very much, especially since she was the type of person I gravitated towards, quiet and kept to herself most of the time. It didn't hurt that she was also interested in art and we spent hours drawing and talking and doing the types of things teenage girls did, but my friendship with her was  different than my friendship with Jeremy.

Jeremy, Heather and I, December 2004

I think the hardest shake up in my friendships was when I graduated high school, the hardest of these being when Jeremy was accepted into a college that was in a different state. I took this pretty hard and I can't even explain how difficult it was particularly the summer he left. I think I was depressed at one point, and I went in and out of it; to this day I still can't explain why I reacted that way.

I think that first year of college was probably the hardest (for me at least) Jeremy and I corresponded via email for the entire time he was in college, but nowadays it's mostly through Facebook and text messages. I think it was the correspondence during college that probably saved our friendship because most friends from high school don't stay in touch.

Jeremy and I, May 2007. College was hard on our friendship, but we managed, to this day that still amazes me

 Today, I'm still making friends, mostly online and a few at church, and I've learned that each person I come in contact with even if I'm not particularly close to them has something to teach me even if it's only for a little while.

-Tori