Growing up through conversation.

Last night, I was reunited with my best friend from primary school. We spent the evening eating apple pie, drinking Screwdrivers, watching The Boat That Rocked, and talking.

I couldn't help but notice that over the years, our conversations have changed and evolved as we've changed and evolved. Once upon a time, we were sitting on the Lower Juniors playground watching the cool kids play football on the field and writing our names in chalk on the hopscotch grid, talking about how nasty the skinny blonde girls were to us.

We'd spend our weekends delving into the fancy dress hamper, baking Fimo animals in the oven, playing Digimon on the Playstation 1, setting up Playmobil worlds and talking about how we never wanted to grow up. A few short years later we were reading Harry Potter, watching Monty Python, practicing kissing on marshmallows, listening to The Goon Show and talking about how badly we wanted to grow up.

Before long we were at "big school", wearing ties and blazers, having sleepovers, dyeing our hair and talking about the cute boys in our classes. 

Then suddenly, we were both at separate colleges and meeting up maybe once in a blue moon. One of the precious few times we actually got to see each other, we sat on a bench in the middle of town talking about old times for about five minutes before moving on to talk about losing our virginities. This was the first time we'd talked seriously about such personal things, and over the following years this personal talk became habitual. We saw each other maybe one more time before leaving college and moving on to university. We spent a whole day playing the Sims 2, playing each other new music we'd recently discovered, and talking about relationships.

For the time between September and last night, we had an exclusively Facebook relationship, if that... It consisted of seeing each others' updates and photos, maybe commenting on the occasional post. It's always a shame when friendships are reduced to this, especially with someone you were once so close to, someone you grew up with. So when I had the chance to meet up with her in person last night, of course I said yes.

Our conversations last night were definitely the most evolved and personal yet, and also the best. Actually, second best to our conversations about Lord of the Rings when we were nine years old... We discussed university, our work, plans for next year... And sex. We clinked our glasses "to fuck buddies!" and inquired as to each others' "magic numbers". (I can honestly tell you that there is nothing more trippy than learning that your sweet, innocent and naive friend from primary school has slept with exactly twice as many people as you). Then we drank some more and talked some more, and I wondered to myself what we'll be talking about in a few years' time.