Dedicated to my first best friend in my life; you may have forgotten what we shared, but I understand you've moved on.

I remembered my first best friend in my life.  We met on the school bus at preschool- two messy toddlers with chocolate smeared all over our shirts and faces.  Back then, we did quarrel, but not horribly...only in ways friends do.  The counselors didn't really know that, and split us up whenever we wanted to ride together on the bus.  We didn't care- on the rides home we weren't stopped.  Both of us loved the colors pink and purple at the time, along with doing arts and crafts.  We were almost inseperable.

Almost.

On the last day of camp- the last day I'd ever go to that preschool, I said bye to her like any other day.  I didn't know that I wouldn't see again until eight years later.  To this day, I'm still not sure if she knew that either.  On the first day of Kindergarten, I looked for her, expecting her to be in my clas.s.  I was confused when she didn't show up on the first day, but didn't say anything about it.  I as.sumed she was sick, or perhaps still on vacation.

She never came.

Finally, I broke the silence and asked my parents where she was.  They looked shocked and told me that she went to a different school.  They thought I knew, which I could understand as we were always together and it was thought that we knew everything about each other.  I was shocked, hurt, and angry.  So that day, I discovered that I wouldn't see my best friend anymore.  I still thought of her as my best friend, even as I entered Middle School.

I didn't think I'd see her again.

The first year of Middle School was dramatic and painful.  It hurt to lose my two best friends since third grade to alcohol, abusive boy friends, and the wrong people.  They didn't die, but it was like they did.  I made plenty of new friends, including my current best friend and guys who I never paid attention to in elementary.  Then, after talking to my friends, I realized that she went to this school.  My first best friend.  My friend introduced me to her as if we never met, and when I looked at her, I recognized the messy chocolate-faced girl that I knew. 

But she didn't recognize me.

She gave me one glance and turned to my friend, smiling.  Then she grabbed her arm and ran down the hall towards their next clas.s.  I never expected her to cry out my name and tell me that she remembered everything that happened in preschool, but I guess I should've expected that she had forgotten me.  Eight years had pushed our friendship out of her head.  Now she had new friends and so did I.  I admit that I wasn't hard to get over the fact that she didn't remember me.  

Probably because I didn't treasure our friendship as much as I used to.

I guess that's what time does.  It can wear away things that used to be treasured so dearly until you can just forget about it and move on without a second thought.  It turns out, my current best friend knows her and she insists that she's her best friend.  According to her, the one who used to be my first best friend changed drastically.  Apparently all she did was talk and complain about teachers and never stop talking.  Sure, we talked in preschool, but I couldn't ever recall her being too talkative.

But seeing the yearbook brought back memories.

My Dad called me down one day in the Spring time of seventh grade and showed me a dusty yearbook from preschool.  It was purposely black and white, made to look old by the school board.  I flipped through it and saw many people I recognized in the school.  There was my friend from Technology clas.s, the evil girl with the devil's glare from lunch, and the obnoxious kid from fifth period Spanish.  I also saw my friend who would have been my best friend now if she hadn't moved away in second grade.  

And then I saw my best friend.

She looked like how I remembered her- smiling at the camera in the long dresses she cherished so much.  It made me miss the friendship we used to have.  But I couldn't miss what we had lost over eight years so much.  I closed the book and put it in my shelf to be opened who knows when.  If she had moved on, then so would I.  It didn't matter that she had forgotten our friendship, all that mattered was that it had existed once and I had the chance to enjoy it while it lasted.

Thanks for being my friend for a short time, Allison.