Put down your life’s story in 52 weeks (18-21)

This article is part of the series “Put down your life’s story in 52 weeks” in which I accepted the challenge of writing down snippets of my own life’s story in 52 weeks.

Questions 18-21

18. Who were some of your friends in school? Explain what your friends were like and what they are doing today if you know that.
19. If you went to college or a vocational school, what school did you attend? Describe what memories you have of those years and what subjects you studied.
20. What do you see as your greatest strengths?
21. What were some of the challenges you have had to deal with in your life?

My thoughts

Birds of a feather will flock together – this was true for me and my BFFs.

I can’t remember any closer friends of the first elementary school I went to, though. Maybe simply because the school itself was too far off to meet any of them in the afternoon.

One of my BFFs I met at the second elemetary school I went to. We already had a friendship there even though we didn’t yet spend too much time together outside of school. We had the same way to walk each morning though, along with my two friends that lived in the same house as we did. Unfortunately those two were in different grades, not in mine.

It took me a while to warm up with my new classmates since I only joined them in third grade. My friend and I got closer when we both switched to the Gymnasium two years later. Sitting together whenever possible, spending the breaks together and visiting each other several times a week. That’s what good friends do…

Neither of us felt attracted to the “girly gangs” around us who already were mainly focused on fashion’n’style and boys. Call us boring, that’s ok, we were more the reserved, grounded girls. Still giggly though… This friend went to a technical college after we finished the Gymnasium.

The second friend, also reserved and more on the quiet side, joined us about two years later. She had been in our grade from the beginning but kept all for herself back then. Depending on the classes we took you’d always see at least two or all three of us together, chatting about books, handicrafts, movies and the likes. She didn’t live too close to me so we didn’t visit each other frequently but I joined her and her sister on a vacation once. Good times… This friend later studied electrical engineering, one of the first, if not even the first female electrical engineering student in our area.

Another year or two later our trio turned into a quartet since another girl joined our circle who had had to repeat the grade. She was a lively girl and sometimes a tad silly, the good kind of silly though. That also was the time when we four started to chat and giggle about boys, sweet fifteen and sweet sixteen… She also lived not too far off from my home so we spent afternoons together as well. Fashion’n’style still wasn’t our main focus and probably never was.

Since after the Gymnasium and my apprenticeship I moved away from my home town and soon had a family, our contact faded away. Fortunately it’s much easier to keep in contact nowadays, with all the technical possibilities we have now.

How do you keep contact with your old friends even if they live too far away to visit them often?