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Remember the days when you'd walk around the school halls with a chain around your neck, and on that chain was a charm; the charm was half of a heart and it read either "Friends" or "Forever". The other half, obviously, was worn by your best friend. Those were the days when you both were young, and friendship was all about fun. Neither of you were old enough to date, so you spent much of your time together. You didn't care about things that seem to matter to adults, like politics, religions, relationships, etc. You were both simply linked together in childhood; you were linked together by the hardships of growing up and learning about the world around you. But then, to your dismay, came the day that you both started dating. You endured arguments over love interests. It only went downhill from there. Later on, you both grow up and find yourselves, and you turn out to be very different from each other. You want to talk about issues in the world, and she wants to talk about hair and makeup. She wants to settle down, get married and have kids, while you'd rather play the field, and you're finding it difficult to spend time together and relate to each other. Eventually, you both move to different cities or states, get a career, and stop talking altogether. Outgrowing friendship is a harsh reality that everyone deals with at some point in their lifetime.

We were only six years old when we met. It was our first day of first grade, and we were both just as nervous as all the other children to be in school full time, away from our families, and surrounded by all these unfamiliar faces. She was sitting across from me, decked out in a floral dress, white tights, and saddle shoes. She seemed to be staring at me every time I glanced up at her, and I became very angry about it. I utilized the infamous six year old's way of resolving this kind of awkwardness, and I stuck my tongue out at her. She looked shocked, and returned the favor, topping it off with a mist of spit. We both sat there for a moment, and began to laugh. And that was that, we were best friends. It didn't make any sense, and it didn't have to.

My new best friend's name was Lilly. At every chance for group activity we chose one another as a partner. On Valentine's Day when it was mandatory to hand out Valentine's cards, I gave her the biggest, prettiest one from the package, and she did the same for me. We drew each other pictures and stuffed them in our classroom mailboxes

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