Blast from the past.
When I was in middle school, I had awesome friends during the school year. But most of them were from a somewhat higher socioeconomic strata than my family and I, and thus had a tendency to go away for vacations; also, since we were all too young to have cars or really take the buses alone, this combined to mean that we really didn't see each other during the summers. We said goodbye in June, we met up in September.
I never understood why people were so against going back to school.
Because I needed something to do with all my restless adolescent energy, I started volunteering at the local SPCA. It was a very difficult, very rewarding, very enlightening experience, and it led to learning a lot of things I really needed to know. And best of all, it led me to Katrina.
Katrina was a few years older than I was, brash, bold, interesting, and full of ideas that I'd never considered having. She had a parrot named Ernie who was a pretty bird and would tell you so, and a house full of books, and an infectuous grin. She and I became friends in a hurry, and spent practically every weekend at her house for the whole summer I lived with my grandmother, then alternated for the next year and more.
She was there when Ayla died, and when Leela was just a wide-eyed scrap of kamikaze fuzz. She was there when I started high school and cried from the frustration of being all alone in a scary new place, with all my old friends reinventing themselves in ways I couldn't understand. She was a friend when I needed one, and I loved her endlessly, and, as is often the way of friendships at the age we both were, we gradually lost track of one another.
Last week, I got an email. I've had the same email address since '97; it's fully possible to track me down, if you're patient and clever.
It was from Katrina.
Sometimes, if you're very good, and very lucky, sometimes the things you love and lose...they really do come back.
I never understood why people were so against going back to school.
Because I needed something to do with all my restless adolescent energy, I started volunteering at the local SPCA. It was a very difficult, very rewarding, very enlightening experience, and it led to learning a lot of things I really needed to know. And best of all, it led me to Katrina.
Katrina was a few years older than I was, brash, bold, interesting, and full of ideas that I'd never considered having. She had a parrot named Ernie who was a pretty bird and would tell you so, and a house full of books, and an infectuous grin. She and I became friends in a hurry, and spent practically every weekend at her house for the whole summer I lived with my grandmother, then alternated for the next year and more.
She was there when Ayla died, and when Leela was just a wide-eyed scrap of kamikaze fuzz. She was there when I started high school and cried from the frustration of being all alone in a scary new place, with all my old friends reinventing themselves in ways I couldn't understand. She was a friend when I needed one, and I loved her endlessly, and, as is often the way of friendships at the age we both were, we gradually lost track of one another.
Last week, I got an email. I've had the same email address since '97; it's fully possible to track me down, if you're patient and clever.
It was from Katrina.
Sometimes, if you're very good, and very lucky, sometimes the things you love and lose...they really do come back.