The first time I ever felt like being myself was ok was in fifth grade. Fifth grade is also the year I found the first bestie to make me feel alive.
Before then it was years of being the fat kid.
Since kindergarten I had a girl bully , with a HUGE forehead- and her baddie girl posse- who now look old, beat down and crumbled- btw. laughing and mooing at me. it was YEARS of this as I was a catholic school girl in a class of twenty something.
In fifth grade a new girl came to school, and saved me in that way you did not know you needed saving until you were saved.
The Mean girls tried to befriend her, but she was not into it. She was too real to stand next to girls like that, and when she looked away from all the fake shit she found me.
Before then I had never felt like being me just the way I was was in a public space was an ok thing to be.
You could just be yourself without having to shift to make the world like you better? You could just say fuck em and do you?
My Mother had a hard road with this being yourself in the world business.
She was only herself at home, and most herself when we would snuggle up in her bed and fight about the plot of Days of Our Lives. She taught me to blend in and be as normal, classy, pretty, and polite as possible.
She did her best to raise me the same, but where ever I am, my personality tends to leak out.
Fifth grade bestie was wild in all the best ways.
The first time she invited me over she told me her mom said it was cool if we made home made face masks to do facials.
Welp she did not.
So much oatmeal and honey!
She always had me doing things I would not do in normal life like playing basketball. She even got me to play sophomore year of high school.
That did not last though. Jr year of high school is when I wanted to be smoking Newports, and eating Cheetoes which led me to me high school bestie. Junior year of high school I made another friend who would take over for fifth grade bestie.
I found a friend that again reminded me that you could just be yourself. You did not have to try and fit into a size pants to be included in stores. You could eat your snacks. you could laugh so hard you pee your pants. You could drive around for hours playing Red Man Welcomoe to the Bricks on Repeat. Flashing truckers when Ice Cube put You back into came on the radio.
She again reminded me you didn’t have to listen- you could just be yourself.
You could pass B level Math and still sleep the entire class. You could be besties even if you got kicked out of the big locker in the West Cafeteria for being too messy.
Both Blonde
Both Blue eyed
Both Earth Signs.
Now maybe that has nothing to do with anything, but it sure is a coincidence that the two friends in my lifetime to ever make me feel like every bit of me was a ok to show up in public. To try new things. To laugh more. To enjoy the moments.
After this point I can say no one ever brought out the wild in me. The shades were there in my grown up besties, but they never got it going for me like my earth sign, blondes, and I got to thinking that maybe that had more to do with me than my sting of adult besties.
My last ex bestie is not blonde- a red head actually. She was also a Leo, and you know the thing about those relationships is that when they are good -well they are so good, but when they are bad?
It is a fight to the dearth. Especially if your Mars signs love to fight.
The universe tends to send us someone we need to learn the lesson with, and if we cannot learn with the trigger- well we get a chance to try with other people as we head down the road.
I know I will never have a bestie like my last one, the first one or the high school one, not because nostalgia has me wishing for the great days of old, but because I never want to be a friend like that again- as long as I am so full with my own life anyway.
what I noticed with all my besties as I aged was how the bestie title does not shift as we grow up and add on more to our plates.
Being up besties ass when you have mad kids, animals, goals, a house, and hormone imbalance is not what I am looking for personally. That is a distraction from the things I am trying to accomplish like writing novels, reading 100 books, and making my kids do family book club!
We think that this idea of your bestie pre kid is how bestie should be post kids.
Maybe you never even want kids, but if your bestie has one- well you got to adjust. You just get more and more people in front of you who become more important than you, and that is hard for the girl who has been on call since she gave out her first friendship bracelet to do, and feel.
Being a bestie with no other obligations often turns into a partnership, but to exist in your family you need you have to be in partnership elsewhere, and you can’t be held responsible to hold the hair back of your besties while they puke when you have babys and pets puking on you too.
I of course had the opportunity to make new besties since I kicked the last one out. Once I linked up with them I understood something right away.
It was not about waiting for the next blonde, blue eyed, freckled earth sign coming along to make me feel alive and free with all the free time I do not have.
It had to be an inside job before that girl could ever even dare come along and remind me of that, and I had to have my boundaries on what I wanted my life to look like in place before I could ever welcome someone else’s fire into my heart.
After last ex bestie- the Universe probably said. “Typical.”
Then they gifted me a space to figure out how to learn to be a real friend in her forties.
Not the kind of friend that people post on the socials to show the world they love them.
I had to learn to be a friend without giving away every solution you can think of at detriment to my own energy reserves.
I had to learn to be a friend who said day 2 of my period is a valid excuse to bail.
I had to learn to be a “bestie” but not even talk for three days in a row.
Be a friend, and do not try to give life advice.
Be a friend and not give a shit what the other one is doing even if they are leaving in a van to live and feed seals on the California Coast.
They taught me To be a friend who knows we are better together but we have separate lives to live.
I had to be a friend that is there to laugh, to cry, to ride- but not at the expense of you having to sit in an overpriced under cleaned restaurant when you would rather spend the free day away from everyone in your house reading in the woods on a blanket.
The Universe needed me to learn to be a friend where you are not the Doctor. Cue up the Alanais Morrisette.
I have gone through all sorts of besties the ones that change your life, the ones that like you a lot so you like them too, the ones that are side notes but still parts of the best stories of all time, and now besties that you do not have to worry about except when you make plans to meet up.
I am sure at some point in my life someone will come along and remind me to do risky things, and I will be ready with more free time on my hands. It all started in fifth grade though. Before then I had no idea there were besties that could light your whole world up with possibility and adventure.
