When I first put this topic on my list as an idea for a blog I might write, I thought it would be a blog about how hard it is to find someone who could be your best friend. To my surprise, it jumped out of the list at me tonight, not because I have found that new best friend, but because I have recently found my last best friend again.

I had a best friend in high school; her name was LaQuita. We were from different backgrounds, and had very different family lives, and didn’t really even hang out in the same “social” groups. For some reason, we connected, and even though we both had other groups of friends, we were close as (or closer than some) sisters.

She had grown up in that town, so a lot of her friends belonged to the group of kids that she had always gone to school with; many of them lived near her and she’d known them since elementary school.

On the other hand, I had moved to town in the middle of 8^th grade, and so I had sort of “collected” a group of friends that was more diverse, and less intimate. I had been forced to leave behind the friends that I had gone to school with since elementary school, amid the typical teenage protests that my parents were only moving to ruin my life.

We were close through most of high school; through several boys, and all the normal high school goings-on. When college time came, she went away, and I didn’t. Over the years, we lost touch. I never found another woman I could call my best friend. I’ve got some good female friends, and some really close male friends; but I never had anyone else to call my “best friend.”

We had been in contact once a few years ago, but hadn’t been able to keep it up; both of us with young kids and lots of things to take care of. I always missed her.

Then, a few months ago an old boyfriend of mine got back in touch with me, and as we renewed our friendship and caught up on events in our lives, he asked whatever happened to LaQuita, and I told him what I knew. He was able to get in touch with her, and connected us back up again. I was so excited! Luckily, so was she.

It’s been amazing having her back in my life. We talk almost every day, and I don’t feel like an idea or an event is complete until she’s heard about it. She listens to my problems and issues and ideas, and talks sense into me when I need it! Don’t know what I’d do without her—but I hope I don’t have to find out again!