so my mom's back in my hometown and told me about visiting my friend from middle school's mom and it so viscerally brought me back like at first I was like, you still talk? Bc we had kind of a weird awkward friendship, you know, it was middle school and we were awkward brown girls who never felt at home. I remember we kind of bonded bc we went to the same Sunday school type thing and all the other girls there seemed so proper and like they had their lives together, and idk. We were like 11 and they were just pretty and proper and good at being feminine and were a tight clique and she and I were kind of goofy. I had forgotten about this but I lived with her for a little while when my dad was in the hospital and my mom was back and forth between staying with him and doing business stuff. I forgot how funny and goofy she was. She ended up going to a different high school, the same one my ex and all the cool girls from the Sunday thing went to, and the next time I saw her was during a religious festival and she asked about my ex and like world's collided in my head and I was like oh god I can never speak to her again. Her house was amazing, very simple and clean and minimalist. Her mom always had that Hindi knockoff of la fea mas bella playing in the background, jassi jassi koi nahi and these brown wooden statues - you know the ones, of Indian villagers decorating the halls. She always had something in the works, lentils out to soak near sunny windows. It was honestly such a typical american gujarati household but the only one that wasn't family's that I felt comfortable in (and real talk I felt more comfortable there than in some family members homes) In middle school, when I stayed with her, we basically acted like it was just a weirdly long sleepover and would gossip all night and. This sounds bad, but just being able to speak openly and honestly with another girl coming from the same background and cultural mores as yourself was so helpful, knowing you're not the only one that doesn't feel like you're doing it right but it still matters to you in some ways. It was nice and I'm glad my mom still talks to hers.
