‘GIRLS FROM HOME’, ‘home girls’, ‘girls from school’ or simply ‘the girls’.
To mark Galentine’s Day 2017, here’s to the best friends ever because…
1. You have so many actual photos of them
That school trip to Paris when you ate every meal in Flunch and the sound teachers let you smoke.
That transition year musical when you all felt you could actually have won a Tony when the run (two nights in the assembly hall) was finally over.
The debs. So many updos and ill-fitting tuxes.
All captured on actual film, developed in the chemist, and stored carefully in a box Down Home.
2. You have the greatest and longest memories together
So many memories.
So many dodgy shifts that she forgot ever happened but you won’t let her forget. So many sleepovers. So many teachers and exams and lunches. So many discos and pubs and borrowed outfits and borrowed shoes.
3. Those sleepover memories though
The only real social outlet you had for so long.
Staying up all night watching DVDs in someone’s sitting room, with every duvet in the house covering every inch of floor and at least two visits from irate parents telling you to “keep it down and go to sleep for the love of God”.
4. And the notes written in school
If you’re a bit of a hoarder you probably still have them in a box (maybe with the photos)
Long notes passed in history or Irish or study about who fancied who and who hated who and how BORED you were. And of course the pleading to “write back”.
(Tip: bring these notes to your friends’ hen parties. You will pore over them for hours)
5. “Do you REMEMBER him?”
That particular recollection of one boy in particular. Is he still around? Is he still a ride? And what about “her”. The pretty girl. Where is she now? She does NOT have five kids.
6. Weddings and weddings and weddings
All of you back together again, laughing knowingly at the most personal parts of the speeches, elbowing each other at the in jokes.
First on the dancefloor and last to bed. Just like old times.
7. Babies and babies and babies
It feels like their babies are your babies, kind of. You’re their aunty (even if you’re not really).
8. Those Christmas drinks
The weddings and the babies make it more difficult as time goes on, but the Christmas drinks and the Stephen’s Night out is a holy tradition. Old haunts and old flames around every turn.
9. Their parents are your parents
You drove them spare just like you drove your own parents spare. They were delighted their daughter had such wonderful friends.
“Great girls” they’d say to each other (until you all attacked the drinks cabinet for the first time). They picked you up and dropped you off with the patience of saints.
You ask after them all the time now. And hope, really hope, that they’re keeping well.
10. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve spoken to them
Maybe you talk every day, or maybe you see each other once in a while. It doesn’t really matter, it all just picks up where you left off.
They’re the WhatsApp and Facebook groups you will never leave.
