This is about a long, lost best friend of mine from primary school in 2011. You’ll find out why it’s significant below the poem. It’s quite a dramatic story
Enjoy, and sorry for recording in portrait! I’m clearly not a YouTuber by habit- or a YouTuber at all 🙂
Lyrics
To have distance pull us apart;
no more childhood sleepovers
we loved, we laughed.
It’s been a decade of a snail friendship;
minimal texts, it would strain a bond
so weak, so meaningless.
Today, in my twenties, you followed my Instagram;
a travel account for documentation,
I sent ‘thank you’ in a message.
Visibly, we are the exact same people;
a theme identical to mine
our snail friendship, maybe not so feeble.
Perhaps, luck will taste like veggie burgers and bubbly wine;
two twenty-year-old girls with similar goals,
two journeys, possibly destined to collide
may we give it time.
Background
I had this best friend in primary school who I was inseparable from; sleepovers on weekends and weekdays. To place us, we grew up in Tully, far North Queensland, in the tropical region. It’s known for it’s incredibly high rainfall and sugar cane- you could almost chew the air and get cavities. I wrote a poem some time ago- I’ll link it below- describing the sugar cane and countryside, all inspired from my childhood.
We lived alongside mosquitoes and were surrounded by gorges & beautiful landscapes of forestry. We often ate snags by the creek, and never wore shoes. The living conditions were certainly foreign to my current location in the Port Macquarie region, NSW.
My memory is a bit distorted seeming this was over a decade ago- now I kind of get what it’s like to be old!- so there’s probably some inaccuracies. Just go with it- it’s approximately true.
So, what’s the significance? Keep reading.
The Separation Of Our Friendship
An extraordinary, category 5 cyclone ripped through the small, sweet & smoky flavoured town in 2011. It tore rooves off houses and stores, and left us living in our tractor shed for a week with tin food, while we crammed mum’s Mitsubishi Outlander with as much as we could salvage. We didn’t want to leave straight away because we had to check on all our friends- after-all, we’d been living there for my whole childhood, those were our unrelated family. Plus, I think we procrastinated moving simply because we didn’t want to but couldn’t afford to stay. Photos of Tully and proof of the damage afterwards, do exist in an unknown location, sorry I can’t find them!
Telei is the name of this best friend. Her house was nearly demolished- totally unliveable for her and her four siblings. I’m yet to find out if any more babies popped out since moving away, but they stayed in Tully. She moved houses and well, that’s all I know.
This is Telei.
Living In Distance
We were starting year four. After my family and I moved two and a half hours south to Townsville, she occasionally visited me- I couldn’t bare the thought of seeing Tully, I was upset and traumatised; we were INSIDE the old, two-story house as the roof concaved, a whole wall collapsed to the ground, and 250km/hr winds roared an ear-splitting roar. I know I sound dramatic! It actually was that dramatic, ask my parents!
Being as young as we were, contact was lost in the distance, and I suppose it was partially to do with our closeness loosening before the cyclone hit- hanging out with separate friends and liking different activities. Reaching puberty and the technology stage in our lives, we became Facebook friends, although we didn’t really talk. The friendship became dubious and fuzzy: how one develops when two people have grown up separately and disconnected for years, that you’re both unsure of the mutual feelings.
The Significance Of Our Friendship
She followed my personal Instagram out of the blue, the other day (year 2022), with an interesting, new account she made. I sent her a warm-hearted message meaning ‘thank you.’
Her new account was a documentation of her travels- she must have been ready to venture astray from her pack and blossom. She had graduated in Tully, alongside our peers of primary school- who, I’d be surprised if they even remember me. I suppose she wanted to go and live life free of school.
The reason her account sparked my interest like it did, was because after thirteen or so years of blind, childhood friendship, then jump-cutting to the present day in adulthood, I noticed she is exactly like me: a free spirit. She’s lost loads of weight & eats pure whole-foods. Her fashion is alike, as is her outlook on life. She’s followed the path of the carefree and happy, and created an online space as a means of self-expression, and for a visual journal.
It’s mind-blowing, and I finally understand how a friendship can mysteriously remain intact over the course of thirteen years, despite distance and limited contact:
The souls are identical.
and someday, our similar journeys will find us at an intersection, somehow…
if we’re lucky.
I shout a massive shoutout to my goddess mother for somehow digging up these rare, ancient photos.
I was shocked they still existed!
INSTAGRAM: @lifeoftelei
