There’s a special kind of magic in reconnecting with someone who knew you before the world told you who to be. Yesterday, I met my childhood friend for lunch—a woman who once lived right next door to me—and felt something I hadn’t realised I’d been missing, the warm, unshakable comfort of home. Not the kind of home defined by walls or addresses, but the kind built from shared secrets, playful summers, and the kind of friendship that roots itself in your bones.
We grew up in the same block, two kids from completely different worlds, but so connected into one. Some of my happiest memories live in those years: racing each other on roller skates until the streetlights flickered on, choreographing dance routines to Britney Spears, and launching into full-blown water fights, shrieking as we flooded the entire block and anyone unlucky enough to walk by. Her house was my sanctuary. Her mother, a woman with an aura that could light up a room, welcomed me like I was her own. If I knocked on their door and my friend wasn’t home, her mum would grin and say, “You’re coming to run errands with me” She’d take me along to go visit her mother and eat food with them. In those moments, sitting beside her, I felt a flicker of what it might be like to be someone’s daughter—seen, wanted, unconditionally claimed.
But as you know childhood isn’t always simple, and not all homes are safe. For years, I carried a quiet hurt over what I thought was my friend’s sudden abandonment. My mother would tell me, “She’s out with her other friends again,” or, “She doesn’t have time for you.” I believed her. I curled that rejection into myself like a bruise, wondering why I wasn’t enough.
Yesterday, over lunch, the truth spilled out. My friend’s eyes widened as I mentioned the old sting of those memories. “But I did knock for you,” she said. “All the time. Your mum would open the door and slam it back in my face.” The air between us stilled. All those years, I’d blamed myself—or worse, blamed her—for a rift manufactured by someone else’s cruelty. My mother, whose own wounds had turned her into a gatekeeper of connection, had weaponised my loneliness.
There’s grief in realising how much was stolen—not just time, but the innocence of a friendship that should have been simple. But there’s a fierce, glowing gratitude too. Gratitude that life has a way of circling back to what matters. That decades later, two girls from the same block can sit at lunch, laughter tangled together, picking up threads of trust that never fully frayed.
As we hugged goodbye, I felt a lightness I hadn’t known I’d lost. This friendship, once a casualty of someone else’s brokenness, is no longer a ghost of the past. It’s a living, breathing thing—a second chance to rewrite the story.
To anyone who’s lost a friend to lies, distance, or time, hold space for the possibility of return. People who feel like home have a way of finding you again. And to my friend—thank you for knocking, all those years ago, and for knocking again now. I’m here, door wide open, ready to grow a friendship that no one gets to sabotage this time.
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