My best friend from childhood moved away when we started junior high school. Before that I’d say we were inseparable. It was late night video games and shenanigans in the woods. We were digging a giant hole in the ground for us and our closest friends to live in after the world ended (because it was totally going to end according to us). For the first time in my life I had a best friend like I always saw on TV. Before that, I was a latch-key kid and stayed home watching PBS and reading everyday and weekend. They were really good times, but eventually his family moved away as military families are wont to do. We kept in contact via email but that wasn’t the same. For almost all of high school we didn’t talk to each other until MySpace caught on. It was so weird to see that he had a life with new friends and adventures. 

It’s still weird for me. This person that I was so close with went and grew up in what seems like another world. He’s the only person I really cared about that moved away so it’s really weird when I think of it. As a kid I always imagined that we were supposed to be best friends for a really long time… that up to the point when we grew up and got married, our lives were supposed to parallel each other. Same schools and colleges, same group of friends, etc. But he and I are really different now. It’s so strange to see his photos on Facebook, events he went to… and have no context whatsoever. I don’t know those places or these people he knows. We didn’t run parallel after all.

We still talk every once in a while but you know… he’s my childhood friend.