Everyone has that one friend that they consider their “day one”. That person who has just always been in your life and with whom you’ve been friends since before you can remember. Someone the universe decided was destined to be a part of your life.
I met Mia when we were three years old. We both attended the same pre-school and became fast friends. The two of us, along with a few other girls, did everything together for the two years we were there. However, I always found that the two of us were the closest since we lived right around the block from each other.Â
She was my first real friend, not the child of one of my parents’ friends that I grew up playing with, someone I met all by myself.
Of course, after we left pre-school, we parted ways. For kindergarten, I attended one of our local elementary schools, and she was enrolled in a private school. Life carried on, we each made new friends at our new schools, and we lost contact.
In second grade, our paths crossed again. Out of happenstance, we had both joined the same swim team, picking up right where we left off. After a year or so, she moved to a different team, but that didn’t stop us from occasionally chit-chatting when we saw each other at meets.
Over the years, we gradually lost contact again once she stopped swimming. Life once again moved forward, and we both lived our separate lives with each other just a distant memory to look back upon whenever we reflected on the nostalgia of childhood.
At the beginning of my freshman year of high school, I crossed paths with a new girl in the hall who looked overwhelmingly familiar to me. It was like something was pulling me towards her, and it immediately clicked who it was. Mia had transferred to my high school.
That entire year, all I wanted to do was approach her, but I kept getting too nervous that she wouldn’t remember who I was. I can’t exactly remember when it was that we finally reconnected, but I do know that we happened to unknowingly share the same mutual friends, and by the time we reached the second half of our senior year, it was like no time had passed between us.
From there, our friendship just grew stronger. The summer following graduation, not only did we spend more time with each other, including taking a random trip to New England, but we got to experience college for the first time together because somehow, we both ended up at the same place.
She may not have been by my side my entire life, but Mia truly is my day one. We might not see each other that often or talk a lot due to paving our own paths at school, but whenever we run into each other, it is like no time has passed.Â
There’s a kind of comfort that comes with a friendship like that, the kind that just feels like home, no matter how long it’s been. Some connections don’t fade, even as life changes and we grow up. It’s proof that certain friendships aren’t just part of our past; they stick with us, no matter where life takes us. Some people are simply woven into your story, and life always seems to find a way to bring you back to them, over and over again.