Sidewalk Love Affair

I've already talked a little about my childhood home, about the memories I both can and can't remember. Some memories I wonder if I've fabricated in my little mind as a child or if I built upon the stories I was told of how things happened. Am I the only person this happens to? There's one memory I hope is true, but I'm pretty sure it's just a concoction of stories retold to me. It's how I met and made my first best friend.

I was four, MAYBE five at most. I was allowed to play in the front yard UP to the sidewalk. No farther. We lived right at the edge of a Cul-de-Sac and it was torture to go no further. A little brown haired girl lived right across the street from me and I can remember watching her play in her own front yard, jealous that we couldn't play together. I remember her having a big brother and wanting one too. I remember pretending I *DID* have a big brother who lived in the closet of what would one day be my baby sister's bedroom. I think she and I might have held little conversations from across the street, sitting as close to our "boundaries" as we could get without our Mommy's running out to reel us back in. I'd like to think we talked Barbies and bikes with training wheels. I wish I could be a fly on the wall hearing my 4 year old self laying out the blueprints of what would be the friendship I would base all other friendships upon.

I do know I was painfully shy. I always was, and still am, at times. It's the kind of shy that sends you cowering in the bathroom hoping to God you don't throw up or spontaneously combust. From what my Mother has told me countless times, my little friend's Mother came out and they chatted as neighbors do, I more than likely slinked around my Mommy's ankles like a cat (as I was prone to imagine I *WAS* a cat during those times) and whispered pleadlingly to pleeeease let my friend cross the street... let ME cross the street... meow meow MEOW meow. You know, something alone THOSE lines.

Streets were crossed after that. Pickup sticks were played, dress up shoes were clopped up and down driveways, time capsules were hidden and surprisingly enough never found afterwards, dance routines were played out in bedrooms and secrets were told atop the doghouse roof. Summer days were filled with Barbies sunbathing atop my own home after aerobatic feats left them unreachable. Inside jokes were squirreled away in journals. Embarrassing teenaged confessions of heartbreak and pleas penned on paper were shared in the hallways of schools between classes and amidst the eyes of peers filled with judgment and gossip. Families fell apart (as they too often do) and hands were held. Arguments and differences pushed us apart and brought us back together until silent stretches of our friendship lasted longer than the loud and noisy stretches. People change, as they often do.

My inner 4 year old is still sitting on that sidewalk, whispering secrets and designing grand schemes with her very first Best Friend. For now, I can imagine that social media is now our sidewalk. She writes on mine periodically as I do on hers, and sometimes it's just easier to remember than to pine after a friendship that was perfect as it was in the period of time it existed in.