Who Is Your Childhood Friend

What is your best childhood friend?

I never had a best friend untill I turned 7!I literally never knew about friends since then!I never went to school before age 5 so basically I didn't have any friend before that! If we talk about the locality and the children out there, then, I usually prefered to be at home and play with my brother. Kinda strange, yup!So when I was first sent to school in grade 1, I had a few classmates whose name I hardly remember (though I know few of them still). They were my friends​ or that's what we all called them. I literally didn't know what the word 'friend' meant at that time.But in grade 3, I changed my school and found this girl, Nanda! And now after 7 years she is my bestfriend.So I think, from not having a best childhood friend till 7 years to getting such a best friend and having incredible best-friend-ism for 7 years is amazing as well as more worthy.We have been friends since then. Also, it is so because we are damn similar. Our choice, decisions, talks, interests and what not are always same. Don't know how! Even same handwriting! She is my bestfriend <3Priyanka Singh

Who is your childhood friend?

My childhood friend is a sweet-faced, fair young lady called Adaeze. We became friends in 1991, when we had barely turned five years old. At the time, she was cross-eyed, wore large biofocals, and had the widest grin I have ever seen. She always wore her hair in braids or pigtails, and was not afraid of climbing trees, fences, or playing in the dirt like I did. We had so much fun. Sometimes I had sleepovers at her house, and because our mothers were also friends, we could visit each other on other days, playing either outside or upstairs while our mothers chatted. Adaeze and I shared so much in common. She was the only girl amongst five boys, while I was the only daughter after my elder brother. She also loved video games like I did, and loved puppies, roses and reading, just as I did. We also had a code way of exchanging information that no one else could understand, and we had a way of laughing so loudly, our mouths similarly wide with our black gummy teeth. It was like we were sisters but separated by Colour (she was fair while I was dark). And it was most bizarre because we also shared a name…my name is also Adaeze!I remember our friendship lasting through the time till 2001, when we were teenagers. Then we were living in different towns. Then we lost touch, and only got back together when Facebook became a thing. The last time we saw each other physically was in 2010, at a wedding. Then we were already done at the university, but you bet we hugged and screamed and laughed our gummy laughter as loud as we could. Everyone kept staring at us, while our mothers beamed with pride.Now, I am a lawyer and writer living in Nigeria, and Adaeze is a doctor living in Ohio, but we still stay in touch mainly through the Internet. We look so much alike now that everyone ask if we are sisters. And we say yes, because in our own way, we are!

Do you still talk to your childhood best friend?

Yes. We even have a whatsapp group consisting of most of our elementary class of 1988. It’s marvelous.Like any groups consist of adults who share common childhood, we share a lot of things from the ’80s and early ‘90s. Disco, ’80s “ridiculous” fashion and hairstyle, Madonna & Cindy Lauper, McGyver & Knight Rider, Friends & Full House, and other things we, now, see them as old but gold.Not even that, now we can laugh at ourselves when we talk about childhood crush, who liked who, who used to date who, who fought who. It’s a lot of fun, now, that we are adults and have our own partners.Of course, we share common sadness when we remember our friends who died along the way. Our group had a female friend who died of leukemia, the first one to go when we were still on junior high. And also others who went ahead of us due to various comolications and illness.It was an awesome group. We have celebrities among us, we still have the joker, the playboy, the cool guys and girls, the bullies (now we become friends), the nerds (me), the smart, the rich.Looking forward to our next reunion in the next ten years.EDIT: To keep my answer on topic, I must also mention that one of my best friend is among them. This guy is the one who always spoil movies to me. Either in the group, private message, or even when we meet in real life. I often block him temporarily when there’s a big movie opening soon, and avoid meeting him completely. Last time I blocked him was when I was expecting to see the Avengers: Infinity War movie. He’s a good guy.

Are you still friends with anyone from your childhood?

I’m still in touch with most of my friends from school and college. We did lose touch for a while in between but most of us reconnected with the onset of ‘social media’.And it was social media that gave me one of the biggest surprises of my life as well.This happened way back in 2008. I was an active member on a local online forum here. Now, on the forum, there was a rule that we were to withhold our real names. All of us had aliases. There was this user who used to call himself Smoke. Now Smoke was clearly one of the most popular members on the forum and we quickly struck a jolly camaraderie online. We still didn’t know each others’ real identities.One day, a common friend to both of us spilled the beans that Smoke and I were working in the same company. Oh wow! After much cajoling, she told me his real name. So I sent him an email though our internal mail and after playing him a bit, I told him my alias. He was like “What?! You work HERE?”We became work buddies and kept our online banter alive as well. By and by, I came to know that he was of my age, that he went to school here for a while before moving to India and so on. Now, all these revelations happened over a span of a couple of years, mind you.One day, a couple of years ago, we were yapping casually about work stuff and vacations and all that. I don’t remember how the topic swerved there, but we were talking about where I started school. It was a little private kindergarten with just two classrooms - one for Upper KG and one for Lower KG.Imagine our combined surprise when we both sort of discovered together that we were actually ‘classmates’ in the same kindergarten :D :P He remembered a few names of the kids who studied with us, I remembered some more. We both vividly remembered the sand pit where we used to be allowed to play in. And the little red folding chairs in the classroom. Oh and our dear teacher, curly haired Mrs. Saldanha! ^_^ We both couldn’t control our laughter that day. Like what are the odds of some random person you met online ending up as one of your first classmates? One in a thousand, one in a million? I don’t know! Whatever it is, I’m so glad we found each other!