I was talking to a friend about school and describing how when I was about 12-13 I fell out with my best friends. And being an awkward loner I was walking in the woods (yes, my school had woods. It also had a mock Greek amphitheatre, get over it) alone afterwards, and this group of five or so girls from my year approached me. I was wary as – see previous – geeky and awkward so often automatically on the defensive. Plus they literally had the high ground – I was halfway down a hill at the time and I was literally looking up to them. They said ‘You broke up with your best friends. We will be your friends until you guys make up.’ I think I uselessly went ‘oh, ok’ or something. I did eventually make up with one of my friends and we remain close, but those girls also remain my friends to this day. They were 12-13yo and I was wandering in a wood and they actively found me and decided to befriend me – talk about random act of kindness.
They don’t remember this at all of course. I know because I just checked. I was telling another friend this story and realised that I never thanked them for that. So 26 years late I sent them a thank you. They didn’t remember the event. But then we started chatting. And lots of other memories came up. And we reminisced.
And then somehow I volunteered to try and get a group going for our entire year. I’m not sure how this happened.
Memo: don’t thank people. You get jobs.
