Ivy

When I was almost 6, my family moved to a new house.  My mom was having a baby and my grandmother had had a heart attack, so she couldn't live in her apartment anymore since it was upstairs.  Therefore, we needed a home big enough for the new baby and a separated area for my grandmother.  I didn't know anyone in my new neighborhood.

Although we lived in the same town as before, I was starting at a new school for first grade.  I went to private school for Kindergarten, basically so that I could start school, since I wouldn't be 5 until ten days after the cut-off.  My parents planned to take me out of private school after the first year anyway, but when my mom became pregnant, it sealed my fate to go to public school.  I didn't know anyone at my new school.

I don't really remember when or how I met Ivy.  I suspect we were both riding our bikes around the neighborhood and met that way.  We had a lot in common- we were both 6, we were both in 1st grade at the same school and we both had baby brothers.  We may have had a lot in common, but we looked completely different.  She had blonde hair, I had brown.  She had almost black eyes, I had hazel.  She was short, I was tall.  Everyone called us Mutt and Jeff.

Ivy and I spent all of our free time together.  She had an amazing tree in her front yard that we spent hours giggling up in.  We would ride our bikes between each other's houses multiple times per day, usually balancing a game that we wanted to play at the other's house.  Many board game pieces ended up on the pavement though.  Why we didn't just play the game at the owner's house, I'm not sure.  We lost (or more accurately-pulled) our teeth out together, got our ears pierced together and went to Disney World together.  She would spend the night at my house.  When it was my turn to spend the night at her house though, I was brave until about 10pm, when I would call my parents to come pick me up.  I actually didn't spend the night at anyone's house until 4th grade.

During the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade, my parents decided that we were moving to Texas.  The day we moved was the saddest day I had ever experienced in my 7 3/4 years.  I had to leave my best friend 20 hours behind and move to a new place, where again, I knew no one.  Because this was before email, free long-distance calls and text messaging (not that 3rd graders would have been allowed to text), we wrote letters to each other. 

When my mom, brother and I moved back to Florida 2 months later, we moved 30 minutes south of the neighborhood where Ivy and I used to live.  Although my mom drove me to the school I used to attend, I was in a different class than Ivy.  Outside of school, we didn't really see each other very often.  Sadly, however, in just the 2 short months I was in Texas, things between Ivy and I had changed.  She had new friends that consumed her time and I didn't live close enough to be in her daily life.  Furthermore, my mom, brother and I moved about 6 weeks after we had arrived back in Florida, so Ivy and I didn't have a lot of opportunity to see each other anyway.

When my family moved back to Florida for good at the of 3rd grade, Ivy and I saw each other a couple times, but then her family moved to Ohio before we began 4th grade.  I haven't seen or talked to her since.  I have tried looking her up, but I haven't had any luck.  She may not live in Ohio anymore or perhaps she's gotten married, thus changing her name.  I would love to talk to her again, just to say hi and see how her life has turned out.

Sometimes I wonder, if our families hadn't moved, would we have remained friends?  Would the cattiness of girls in middle and high school changed us and/or broken our friendship up?  I don't know, but I would like to think that we would still be friends.