From birth to five, you're learning
From five to ten, you're playing
By the time you're fifteen you're never wrong
But then you turn around and it's all gone
Your childhood
Friends will come and go in your life. No matter how long your friendships last, the most important thing is your friends’ acceptance of you, and who you are. A good friend walks the talk and shows that they care by their actions – big and small. A good friend is there for you; no matter what. They don’t judge you, don’t put you down, or deliberately hurt your feelings. They’re kind and respectful to you, is someone whose company you enjoy, is loyal, trustworthy, and willing to tell you the truth, even when it’s hard for you to hear. They laughs with you, stick around when things get tough, make you smile, are there to listen, and comfort you when you cry.
Some of us have friends we met whilst at kindergarten, or school, and others have come into our lives more recently. Some friends are closer than others, some you can tell where you buried that body on that cold wintery night… others maybe not so much. All of all our lives would be a lonely place without them.
In my life, I have had many friends, I’m more of a quality over quantity sort of gal, I would rather have a handful of people that l can totally trust and be able to confide in, rather than masses of so-so friends, but at the end of the day, it depends what works best for you.
When I think back to my childhood, I had a few close friends, but one really close sister from another mister, best friend and that would have to be Roula. Roula and l met in grade five at Primary School. She moved to Australia with her family from Greece. On the first day of school she and l shared a desk in Miss Briggs class. We smiled and said hello, pulled out our work books, and low and behold; both were covered in Abba photos. It was friends for life, or for at least till we left high school and she moved back to Greece. We would eat, sleep and listen to Abba, we knew all the songs, all the dance moves, and were kindred spirits. Roula loved Agnetha or rather Anna as she was referred to and l had an obsession with Ani-Frid, or Frida, from now on that is what we went by, or at least to each other. We had posters, LPs, trading cards, all and anything that was out there. We never had our pocket money for long. We bought everything and had quite a collection, everything except a Abba costume, wow.. how great would that have been.. we thought. I was always very good with a needle and thread and my mother had a sewing machine, how hard could it be…?
I spoke to my mother and Roula to hers requesting they please buy us a couple of metres of white fabric, within a week we were sitting on my bedroom floor fabric, thread and scissors in hand. We were excited, nervous and filled with anticipation, but we knew we could do it, and if we had problems my mother was in the next room and she would be our saviour if something went wrong. We looked at each other, smiled, and said here we go! I was lucky enough to have a dress that was a little similar to the White Cat dresses we were creating, so with the help of all the butchers paper my mother had saved from her weekly trip to the butcher, we traced the dress and we had our pattern, the sleeves we improvised, after cutting, pinning, cutting more, pulling out a few hairs we had done it, we were ready to sew our masterpieces. We felt we were as good as the dress makers that work for Dior in Paris… or at least that’s what we told each other. My mother kept an eye on us, bringing in tea and cake, assuring us that we were doing a marvellous job and how we would look amazing when we had completed our work of art. We worked diligently like a fine tuned machine together. The afternoon passed in the blink of an eye, but to be exact it took us six hours and we were done, the last two hours were spent on drawing the cats on, mine yellow, Roulas blue, we looked at the dresses on the floor and smiled, giggled and hugged each other, we had done it! They looked brilliant.
As I grew up, I went onto make many many items of clothing but none has ever compared to those Abba dresses we made many years ago. Two young girls who loved each other as much as their beloved Abba made their dream come true that summery Saturday in suburban Melbourne.
Having a great friend makes us happy because they remind us we are capable of doing anything, which is a great feeling to have. Positive friendships can be a powerful tool in our everyday life, that friendship is enough to change your life from the inside out.