No you have not missed days I am going out of order.
This one jumped out at me because this person is on my mind:
It feels strange. I expected that it would happen – I knew for a very long time – but until Facebook I wuld always tell myself that I was imagining things.
As long as you were down south, and I was up here, and our families were the priority, I could tell myself that we were still that close – life just kept us apart.
Then there was Facebook.
When you went away to college it kind of stung, but I’d had the prep work back then of high school to walk me through it.
It was the summer after Quinton that we began to drift.
You went to your school, I went to mine, and the two of us never really connected again as we did before 9th grade.
We were still close no doubt, but my circle of influence an your circle of influence were so different.
By the time you needed to go to Atlanta – the wedge had been built.
We overcame it – or at least I did. After all you were my best friend in the whole world – so destined to be that we share the same name #1.
You got out. I am happy for that – it can be so difficult to get OUT of Philadelphia – but I lost my best friend in the meantime.
Soon dating and work and adulthood took over and we were updated about one another’s lives via our parents rather than picking up the phone for one another.
On the rare occasion we did talk – it was like we were 13 again. But they were so infrequent and that is both of our faults.
Your visits became fewer and fewer as you met your husband and became a mother. My life seemed so different I could not imagine what we still had in common!
But our love for one another was still there – that was always apparent when we did connect.
At our souls we are still those little girls, but our womanhood has made us different.
Your adoption of Islam – my embrace of my sexuality – your daughters – my career. All of those things kept us from connecting in a physical way but we were always there mentally – sisters.
I looked for you when I first joined FB. I did not find you though. Eventually Trina found me – and lord moses and 6 other biblical characters worth honorable mention I had no idea who she was.
She asked me: Do you remember the Three Musketeers? I was like ummmm yeah now who the hell are you?
Still no #1 to be found though – until the day you did find me. July 2010.
In your message to me you said you felt like you didn’t know me any longer. I think it made both of us sad.
What actually hurt me though was that you never took the time to respond to my message.
In as simple a way as I could put it – I said – yes I am gay – yes this is me – and your silence still rings quite loud.
Ask me anything I said and I will tell you – what matters the most I said is that I am still Nikki. But 6 months is a very long time to think about a question to ask.
It wasn’t even that big a deal until the other day when I saw you and Trina walking down memory lane.
Our memory lane – after all we all grew up in this together.
She commented – as I have in the past 6 months – but you RESPONDED to her.
it made me think that my suspicions were true and that here would be yet another person I was going to have to let go.
I never thought that you would judge me. It is not the Nikki that I knew. I was the judgmental one.
Yet silence in and of itself is judgment is it not?
Do I love you?
Oh hell yeah, like a fat kid loves cake.
But if my sexuality is an issue – then I have to love you from >>>>>>> over there.
I am who I am. I am as the universe created me. I will be this until my next lifetime.
I am still that 12 year old girl too though – and I miss my oldest and dearest friend.