Ignorant Childhood Friends Who Really Are Foes

There I stood in a line in an Electronic Boutique store accompanied by my unwilling sister, who, to this day, is an owner of an Xbox 360 console and not an owner of a game for this console that she actually enjoys playing.

So there we stood consumed by the fact that with her membership privelages, we each were to receive the share we paid for the Xbox 360 game that I had chosen for her. Apparently, my recommendation had not been successful, as the game, a first person shooter, had not fulfilled her requirements of a first person shooter. She would much rather have preferred the game to come with an automatic aim feature, wherein she would have pressed a button to aim and pressed a button to shoot. This game was, to say the least, challenging, and she would have none of it.

While we waited, I turned to the racks on the shelves hoping to find a decently priced replacement that would fulfill her needs – I was out of luck, and she is now out of play; however, this is not the reason I write this essay today. I write today’s essay in commemoration of a childhood friend, who really is a foe, who was waiting in line before us.

I could recognize that flattened right auricle from anywhere – the way the back of her right ear was completely and utterly levelled, and sticking out to form a slight curve towards the front of her face. This girl had spent her childhood with me, our younger years attempting to recognize the world, ascertain our positions in it, how and why we came to be and what potential we could make of ourselves. This was a crucial time and she shared her crucial moments with me. It was until now, in the Electronics Boutique store, that I realized that those moments were not so crucial after all.

She completely ignored my existence. She ignored the fact that the air I was breathing was being released onto her spine, and traveled her backside up to her shoulders, then returned to my lungs. She simply turned around and decided to diminish my existence from her memory, afraid that acknowledging my presence would somehow deem her as an unimportant figure in her accompanying friend’s life. To this day, I will not know why.

What I do know is that I am in no way forlorn. Her necessity in my life does not exist, and neither does mine her. However it pities me that one can be so ignorant – I remember my first week in my Preparatory year, wherein we both wore matching fairy dresses our parents took photographs of us together. I remember how her mother had to pick me up from school once because my mother was busy, and the seat belt did not fit around my waist when I was seated in the backseat, and how ashamed I was. I remember how when I was in my sixth year, she and her ‘clique’ had began to tease me about how awfully close I was to one of the ‘clique’ member’s brother, and how we would marry and have children, as though it were something not so spiritually prosperous.

In growing up, and learning morally right from ethically wrong, I have realized that childish ways do not matter, that they will be forgotten and adulthood would take over and wash away silly things said and done – oh, was I wrong. Now, those distasteful memories of my childhood with this girl will live on more than the tasteful ones, for in adulthood I have learnt from her that childish ways do matter. They are the most remembered ones and they do not change with the coming of age, they just become worse. They evolve and spiral out of control yet remain the very same.

Do not pay attention to childhood friends, for they most likely are not willing to pay attention to the mere innocent memories of you. I thank my sister's unfulfilling episode for my realisation of this.