This weekend I was very pleased to witness a reconciliation whose friendship was fractured more than four years ago. The protagonists of the story were my daughter Valeria and her friend Andrea.
They met at school when they were 8 years old, studied several years in the same classroom and always shared inside and outside the classroom. On birthdays they invited each other and on many occasions they enjoyed each other's company on weekends.
When they became teenagers the friendship grew stronger, each one had separate relationships that they knew how to include and enlarge the group. At the age of 15 they formed an inseparable foursome. The academic and personal support was unconditional until one day my daughter told me with tears in her eyes what was happening.
One of the girls, who has a somewhat possessive and controlling personality, in addition to being spoiled and having a procurer mother, raised a ruckus (literally) in the schoolyard shortly before joining the classroom after recess. She expected her group of friends to support her in an action that made no sense and sought to harm other students, just because of the girl's whims.
My daughter was isolated from the conflict and in absolute silence returned to the classroom. Her friends judged her for not supporting the capricious girl and excluded her from the group. When she told me what happened, I told her that differences among friends is normal and even more so at that age. I told her to be patient, that they would come to their senses and everything would return to normal. I never considered meddling, since it was a matter of young people and I speculated that they could fix it themselves.
But Andrea's mom didn't feel the same way I did. After almost a month had passed and the situation between the friends had not improved, one night at a birthday party, my daughter attended with other friends, she wasn't sure about going since the birthday boy's mother was friends with the girls' moms and knew they could show up and they did.
To make a long story short, Andrea's mom went straight to my daughter and in front of all the guests insulted her, humiliated her, called her names, and even threw the support they had given her in her face. That day they crossed the line and I felt the need to participate, demanding respect for my daughter. Their only mistake was not supporting the girl with a different personality in an act of bad faith.
A few weeks ago, Andrea and my daughter met at a nightclub in the city, both were accompanied by their boyfriends, time has passed and they are no longer the same girls from school. My daughter tells me that when they saw each other, both ran to hug each other as if the enmity had never happened.
After talking for a long time, the girls exchanged phone numbers and social networks again. The time there was not enough time to share their experiences in these long years.
On Thursday I had arranged with my daughter to go for a ride on Saturday, then on Friday she told me that Andrea was inviting her to her first horse riding competition, Valeria replied that she was planning to go with me, then the girl extended the invitation to me and all the family members who wanted to go. In view of the circumstances, I supported my daughter to meet her friend.
We arrived at the club a little before the start of the competition, I greeted and hugged Andrea with the same affection as 4 years ago. We looked for a place to sit down, drink something refreshing and eat a light snack. After a while Andrea left to get ready to compete. She did well and won recognition, she is just starting out in the sport.
Immediately Andrea's mom arrived, at first I didn't know what to do, she approached and greeted effusively and we started talking... The first thing the lady said was "Valeria I haven't seen you in a while, since I made a fuss over you at Jaime's house" and we all burst out laughing.
Valeria and Andrea regained their friendship and that filled me with satisfaction. In the afternoon we said goodbye and each went our separate ways, although Andrea wanted us to continue sharing. My husband picked us up at the club and we took Valeria to my mother's house.
When we arrived to the small town (for me it is a village, but the mayor and the locals insist on calling it a city) where we live, we passed by the liquor store and bought some beers to drink outside the store, the atmosphere resembled the beach, it reminded me of the time when we stayed until the end of the day enjoying the sea and then we passed by the liquor store refilling drinks to continue sharing in the pool of the residence.
The photos are my own and the editions were made in Canva with the free version.
I use the translator Deepl
