The Crew.

When I was a sophmore in high school I was lost. I was kind of a mess. I had struggled through my freshman year significantly and was trying my best to maintain a passing GPA in 10th grade. The summer before my sophmore year I started dating a boy that I had met in school in 9th grade. He had gone to a different middle school than me and had a whole different group of friends than I did. My friends that I had come to high school with from middle school were starting to veer off in different groups, some had dropped out, some were partying a lot and others had just made new friends. I needed a new group. Dating this boy was the best thing that could have happened to me because it introduced me to a whole new group of people. I don't remember how or when it happened but out of the new people that he introduced me to seven of us girls were drawn together. I think in the beginning it was just two or three of us and then as the school year went on it grew into the seven of us. These girls were my saving grace. They were exactly what I needed. They all knew each other from middle school. I was the only one that went to another middle school. I was kind of the out cast but they never made me feel that way. I connected with these girls immediately. All six of them in different ways.

Over the next 2 years of high school we became even closer. We got our drivers licenses, spent our weekends at the beach and drove inconspicuosly by boys homes. We were coming of age together. We went to our first concerts together, we had sleep over at each others houses and got to know each others families. Our junior year was so much fun and they made me want to be at school. Our senior year was everything high school should be. We went to Palm Springs together for spring break, we double/triple dated at dances, we celebrated holidays together and for graduation we went to Hawaii together. All seven of us in Hawaii. It was great.

When high school ended some of us went our seperate ways. Some of us have stayed in touch the entire time, never letting go of what we had 25 years ago. For whatever reason I am the only one that has stayed in touch with all of the rest of them. There have been hard feelings for various reason within the group over the years, I think that might be inevitable when you have seven girls all together. It makes me sad that some of the girls haven't spoken in so many years.

Yesterday I was chatting with one of them on facebook and she is in a similar situation to mine. She lives out of state, has lost most of her family since high school, married someone not connected in any way to our hometown. She and I have always been very close. I love her like nobody's business and would do anything for her. We were talking about how awesome what we had was. How when you move away and make new friends it is nice, but it's never the same. No matter how many friends I made in the desert, or how many friends I will eventually make here it will never be the same as the friends that knew you when you were young. I can talk about my parents, my brother, my family dynamics all day long but nobody will ever know but those girls that I grew up with. They were there. They loved my parents, they knew my brother and some of them had a crush on him, they were there for me when I broke my face on Mike's scooter. They remember what it was like to walk into my house and see my dad on the loveseat and my mom on the couch watching tv. They were there when Mike died. They saw the heartbreak on my parents faces. They knew how big of a loss it was. There is nothing like that.
Many of us went on to be bridesmaids in each others weddings. Our kids have met or if they haven't met they know about each other. They see pictures and hear the stories. Some of us are growing old together as old friends do.
I don't know how they all feel now, if they share my sentiments and if they realize how special what we had was but I know that even if I don't speak to each of them all the time each and every one of them has a special place in my heart. I will never forget my time with them. I will always be forever grateful for how they helped change my path.