What is on my mind, friendship, the best ships our friendships. When we are kids friends come so naturally, mom never questioned my wanting for playdates during the week, or on weekdays when I only had dance or swim practice once. She quite honestly encouraged it so I would gain social skills. We all had the common goal of wanting to play, whether that was with string making friendship bracelets, while watching the Little Mermaid or swimming in the pool shouting Marco Polo, are stuffing pillows under our shirts blasting rock music to pretend that we were sumo wrestlers, or setting up a lemonade stand at the end of the block with a poster and chasing down cars until they agreed that they were thirsty. Some other playdates I had were crafts with dipping mud, pine cones covered in bird seed and hanging those with string on tree branches. I named fish flies and put them all in a shoebox to discover them all dead the next day. playdates were the best days. I would make slime with Sarah my babysitter and get my hands all gooey. Or I'd play Monopoly or Guitar Hero or dress up to play kitchen. Playing became more intricate in high school. We'd have sleepless nights that were asleep overs after spending hours on our hair for homecoming or the Sadie Hawkins dances. While we would simultaneously gossip about the cute boy who sits diagonally from me and geometry class summers were spent biking to the park to sail or to go to Jerry's and get slushies. As a middle child I always was fortunate with company since I never had my own space. Growing up always sharing my bedroom or bathroom was how my life was. As the years progressed, it started to mean party buses to concerts shopping together for those concerts and making trips driving around in our cars based on who was old enough and fortunate enough to have a car to drive. The 711 trips were endless, but they were a place to go to. And we were able to decompress and bond over music and catch up on how we were feeling after that anthropology exam on Tuesday. And how exactly to text Harrison back the crush I had or whether we are going to go to that 5am swim practice on Monday or skip it. When summer came and they were grad parties it was about what to gift to my friends and what to wear to those parties. It was sad but so exciting. In college friends changed. I felt more strategic intentionally hanging out with friends who would help me ace calculus to get into the business school. And then I joined the Smarty Pi sorority. I had my swim friends that I would work out with and travel with. I had my drinking buddies, playdates morphed into drinking and aspiring to go to deep parties. What does friendship mean to me now? How has friendship evolved? Quite a lot. So I've taken my friends into my own hands especially after moving to Hawaii, knowing no one and there is a fundamental need for human beings to have social health and socialization
