September 18, 2016 - 19:57
Play. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of playing as a child is fourth grade. I had just moved back to Boston from Italy and I was readjusting to school. And I had no friends. I was completely alone with no activities, no playdates, and I can remember thinking about how the year in second grade had been so different. But this was also the year I met my best friend. She was my polar opposite. But we both needed a friend that year. I remember our first sleepover. Halloween was right around the corner and I was so excited. Then in class, she guessed the number of candy corn in the jar and she got to keep them all. We ate all 468 that evening, once we were sure my parents had gone to sleep. We both had a Nintendo DS and we were always playing Mario Kart, playing make believe warrior cats, or basketball in the park. And while this wasn’t my first friendship, she was my first best friend. We were inseparable. Neither of us had cell phones so I would pick up the landline and dial her number- I still have it memorized- and I would sit and talk with her for hours. Every day we would have plans, she lived just around the corner so it was easy. We had sleepovers every weekend. And yet after that one year, we moved on. I found new friends in fifth grade and she moved away. It was no longer easy to walk to her house, as she lived on the other side of town. But even now, when I think of playing, I think of us, sitting in my room, under my loft bed playing make believe cat games. She was my first best friend and we played every morning in class, every afternoon after school, and almost every evening.