I absolutely love this photo. It just epitomizes my childhood. If you were to ask the other girls in the photo they would probably say the same. It was probably the happiest time of my life.
This picture was taken on my back porch. I can still remember when my dad and my grandpa built that porch. That porch in a way is a symbol for all my dad and grandpa have done for my family. We used to have nothing, yet they worked and worked to have our family be where it is today. They built our family from the ground up. If it weren't for all their hard work, I would never of had the childhood that I had.
In this picture I am the girl with the ridiculous smile (third from left) and these were my best friends; Michelle, Kelsie, Lindsay, Katie, and Ali. We all lived in the same culdesac which pretty much meant that we did everything together. We were inseparable.
A few years after this photo was taken, I moved to Indiana. At the time I thought that me moving wouldn't make any difference in the dynamic of our group. However, I was wrong. For the most part, each of us went our separate ways. It was as if I was the glue of the whole group. I didn't realize that I played such a huge role in "shaping" the group until I moved back to Minnesota just last year. Michelle and Lindsay are the only ones to still live in the culdesac and from what I hear they don't ever hang out together or even talk to each other anymore. Kelsie and Ali are sisters so they obviously see each other and talk to each other but for the most part they don't talk or hang out with any of the other girls and haven't since I moved away. Before she passed away a year ago, Katie had stayed somewhat in contact with Ali but not like when we were kids.
As for me, I am still friends with all of them. When I moved back it was as if nothing had changed between me and all of them individually but almost everything had changed between them collectively. I look back and wonder if I had never moved if we would all be best friends. If me not moving away would have changed the course of history; Michelle and Lindsay would still just walk across the street to hang out, Katie would still be alive. Or would everything still be what it is today. I don't know. It is crazy to think about.
All I know is that this picture and everything it represents has made me who I am today and I am so grateful for it. They "shaped" me at the same I was "shaping" them.
I have had a similar experience as this in my life, only it was just a growing apart over time. We were a group of 5, and although no one moved away, somehow we just stopped being friends. Time passed and we all changed as people. I am still friends with 3 of them, and close with one. But it is strange how something can seem so solid, and before you know it is completely changed. I definitely don't regret our friendship for it had a huge influence on my life growing up, but it does make me a little sad how relationships change as people grow up. I believe my friendships (good and bad) throughout growing up taught me a lot about who exactly I strive to be as a person.
ReplyDeleteThis brings up an interesting point to consider. We always dwell on the 'what if' aspect of situations. No matter what decision we make, we know that there could have possibly been a better one... a different one. ANd its strange how this might even factor into our perception of our history. Sometimes when i look back at my past, I wonder "what if i had done that differently?" This other path could have affected my present today.
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