Tales of a 5th grade nothing

In the 5th grade I had two best friends. Emily, Meri and I were always together. We ate lunch together; played kickball together we even went to the restroom together. Everything between us was great. We were close to each other and everyone else in our class always wanted to hang with the three amigas (as we were called). But then the unthinkable happened. I didn’t go to Emily’s 10th birthday party. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go, I got in trouble for not cleaning my room and missing my best friend’s birthday sleepover was the price I had to pay. Of course being the only girl from my 5th grade class not in attendance wasn’t punishment enough. The weeks following proved to be rather distressing. Emily was permanently mad at me which of course led Meri to be mad at me as well. I remember one day on our way to recess Meri and Emily pulled me by the jungle gym and basically told me they didn’t want to be friends with me anymore. I’ll admit I WAS DEVESTATED! I was honestly confused on why missing one event would be the reason for our friendship to end. And as if that wasn’t enough my two little ex-amigas convinced everyone in the class to stop talking to me as well.

I ended 5th grade year with my first straight A report card, and no one to call over the summer to hang.

When I look back at that I laugh. Especially when I think that after our High School Graduation Emily was considered a slut and did prescription drugs and Meri an alcoholic and “the biggest bitch”. It’s just funny to think that what you consider very small things can actually serve as the catalyst to the end of friendships. I also think it’s funny that almost 11 years later little things like choosing to study for a test instead of hitting up happy hour with the girls can end friendships. I mean I guess….but the worst severing of ways is when you are truly clueless of the reasons your friendship is ending. I don’t know, maybe I thought we were all mature enough to tell each other why we feel a certain way about their lives. Especially when people claim to be the best of friends. Sometimes situations I go through remind me of the 5th grade. Back then I never saw our friendship ending at all. And the worst part is that EVERYONE in the class knew that moment on the jungle gym was about to take place, except for me of course. Maybe I’m just oblivious but I swear half of the times when people decide to walk away from our partnerships I never see it approaching until I’m staring at the messy “break-up” dead in the face (sort of like a deer in the headlights kinda thing). I guess for people we resort to using grade school solutions to fix problems with friendship. I mean we did learn everything about comradeship back then so why not use those “fundamentals” as adults. Yea, that makes sense…