Post 3: Your first love.

Yes, I know I'm behind. I apologize for this oversight, but pledge to make it up in quickly posted, soft-baked posts.

My first love.

Instead of the expected thing, which would too embarrassing for me, I'll write about my first friend love: Ashlie.

Our friendship blossomed in the third grade when we both realized how many similarities we had: neither were contendors for the most popular girls in the room, yet we were not picked last in gym. We both loved reading, and our fathers owned airplane hangers next to each other. We both grew up on farms. We both started listening to The Beatles together, played reed instruments in band, and went Trick or Treating together the year it was so snowy my dad had to drive us and my brother Aaron in his giant pick up. Yay for Ashlie and me!

We had our differences, (she was in the Girl Scouts, I was in 4-H; she was 7th Day Adventist, I was Baptist) but our friendship didn't start drifting until our freshman or sophomore years. We were friends in the classroom, but I started dating and getting in more trouble outside of class. It's funny (sad, not ha ha) that I don't remember losing this friendship, just realizing years later that it was gone. My family moved my junior year of high school, and I probably only have seen her a couple times since then.

My sophomore year of college was my feminist year of awakening, and I started thinking about that friendship I had lost track of. I tracked Ashlie down via e-mail (she was at a different school across the state) and we re-connected a bit, but I sent her a copy of Fear of Flying and never heard back from her again (that's funny ha ha).

Our mothers kept in touch so I've gotten updates---we're friends on facebook, and I've seen photos of her and her daughter. I hope they are doing well and having fun and singing Beatles songs together. I miss having that friend to discover new music, books, and hide YM magazines with, and I can't imagine what a boring mess I would have been without her.