By Micah Abad, Staff Writer
Normay was my bestest friend growing up. I was the baby of the family and none of my cousins were close to age as me which upset me a bit. I may not have had the close bonds that my cousins had with each other, but I did have Normay. We met months after I was born and ever since then we were inseparable. Having her in my life filled the void I had of not having a sister of my age.
Normay spent most of her days at my house because her parents were always busy working, which was no problem to my parents because I had a playmate that could accommodate my talkative younger self.
We did tons of things together but our personal favorite was taking my moms Ipad and recording ourselves like we were influencers on Vine. One time, Normay begged her older sister, for over a month, to buy us a pack of Bean Boozled, so we could record it like the challenges on Youtube. That day I drank probably nine bottles of water trying to escape that horrible taste in my mouth.
I knew growing up that no matter how many friends Normay was going to make, she would still call me her best friend. Even when I was still in pre-school and she was in elementary school, she was 2 years older than me, we would always look forward to meeting up after school. As we grew older we did different things together, like watching movies, playing volleyball, and getting Starbucks. We even took taekwondo together as an extracurricular activity. Let’s just say it wasn’t our favorite, so we weren’t able to get higher than a yellow belt.
We may have had a close relationship, but our lifestyles were completely different. Norway grew up in private schools, she was surrounded by different people, she lived on the other side of the city.
I think the differences in our lifestyles played a role in us eventually growing apart. When time changed, so did we. We had a strong bond for more than ten years, but then that ten took a pause. We started to meet more people, we explored our different interests and that’s when we both realized we were not as like as we were years back.
When Normay started middle school, I was still in the 5th grade. Middle school is when pre-teens explore more about themselves and branch out. I knew nothing about that nor did I care because all that mattered to me then was enjoying my last year in my elementary school with my friends there.
Between being busy with school and extracurricular activities, Normay stopped going to my house as much as she did before. I was going to an after school program everyday which took up most of my time. From there it progressed to her never having time to come over.
Looking back at every memory we shared makes me appreciate her more than I did before. From fake youtube videos to theme parks every summer, she is one of the biggest aspects of my childhood. Everything I did, I did with her. More than half of my pictures in my photo book has Normay in it. She never left my side which made our friendship so special.
