The one thing I hate about moving is that you’re bound to lose touch with some people. My move to California has been lucky. So far, I haven’t really lost touch with anyone. I talk to Teresa less (since I saw her almost every day), and now that we don’t work together, I don’t get Dina’s lovely phone calls ["Hey, how's it going? Is Teresa there?" lol], and I don’t get to see people anymore, but for the most part… thanks to blogs… my group of friends are almost always in some form of contact. Mostly electronic contact, as far as I’m concerned, but it’s contact nonetheless.
Past friendships have not been so lucky. My first big move was when my parents got divorced. We moved from one side of town to the other, and that meant changing schools. I took a few addresses and promises to keep in touch with me from one school to the next, but for the most part, we didn’t keep in touch. I did get lucky in that three people from my old school ended up transferring to the new school for various reasons with me, so I took a few friends with me. It was kind of cool to walk into the new classroom, terrified of being the new kid, to find that a couple of other people came with me!
In that move, I did lose one friend, though. She lived at the bottom of the hill at almost the very end of my street, and she was a girlie, prissy little blonde thing, but she had the Barbie Mansion, and more dolls and toys than you could shake a stick at, and I always remember thinking she was sooo lucky, even though I didn’t lack in the toy department myself. I wonder what happened to her, though.
My next big move was the move from Wisconsin to Texas. We left after my last day of 5th grade. I’d made quite a bit of friends from that first day of 4th grade to the last day of 5th grade, and my class had a party for me for the last part of the day. They all signed a t-shirt for me, and I took it with me. The names have long since faded, but I kept that shirt with me up until this last move to the Bay Area. I wonder if any of those kids remembered me. I wonder what happened to my friends there. I took away a few penpals from that move as well, but only one actually kept up with it, and that was up until about 5 or 6 years ago. I *think* she got married, and I know that she had a daughter, but I haven’t heard from her in a very long time! I tried writing to her old address, just to see if maybe her parents still lived there & would pass it on, but I never got a response. I hope things are going well with her.
We made a little move almost a year after moving to TX, but that resulted in me being in a completely different school district, and not really near any of my friends, so we lost touch. I made friends at my new school, but was really joined at the hip with my friend Ashleigh, when she moved there from NY. I remember it was in math class, and we had to partner up with people. All the other people partnered with people they’ve known since forever, or just found someone, and the two of us were left without partners, so that’s how it started. She ended up being in a few more of my classes, so we became fast friends. Spanish class was probably my favorite. [Cute story - we had these language lab things where we'd put on these headphones, and you could either talk to people around you, or you would listen to the lesson or whatever...however the teacher had it set up for that particular lesson. We were in groups of three for this particular one, and we had to say what we wanted to be when we grow up. The guy in our group was supposed to say "Quiero ser un maestro.", but instead, he said "Quiero ser un mujer.", which means "I want to be a woman." LMAO!] We were always getting into some sort of trouble because we were always giggling, but it was cool. 
We grew apart, though, in 8th grade. Boys… drugs… rehab… things like that get in the way sometimes. She was in one of my classes again my Freshman year of school, and I saw her now and again my Sophomore year of HS, but the damage was done. I wonder how she is… I talked to her once, and she’d moved in with her boyfriend, but that was the last I’d heard from her.
My Junior year of High school, I moved back to my previous school district, and ended up having a class with one of the girls I went to school with in 6th grade. I remembered her, and she ended up remembering me, and I ended up sitting with her at lunch, and meeting people. THen in PE class, I met Teresa, and I pretty much credit her with the group of friends I have today, because I think she introduced me to just about all of them!!
So… here is to friendships. To my girls - may we never lose touch! Especially since the possibility of us splitting up even more is there!
So. That’s enough sap for the day. See what happens when I have too much time to think at work? 
Manda | 
10 5th, 2007| 
