#14: Reconnect with a childhood friend

When we first made this challenge, I genuinely believed that this would be one of the hardest ones for me. Not that I'm a completely anti-social person but because when you drift away from people, there's usually a reason and so going back to them is not always the best/easiest thing. But then I had a brainwave: one of my best friends from the good old days was a girl called Rianna. And I'd found out a couple of weeks ago that we went to the same uni. So I dropped her a text to see if she wanted to hang out...

Back to the 90s
I met Rianna in primary school, we were one of only four girls in the whole class and since our birthdays were only 5days apart, we instantly became best friends and did all the things that four year old girls do (including being bridesmaids together at a friend's mum's wedding). Life was good until....dun dun dun...my parents decided to move me to another school at the end of year 2 and her parents decided to move to EGYPT (!) at the same time. So we were separated and since we were only 6 or 7 and it was the late 90s, social media was not an option so we didn't really hear from each other from year 3 - 6

Reunited and it feels so good...
BUT in year 7 we both found ourselves in the same secondary school and in the same class, which was such a coincidence. We totally picked up our friendship where it had left off, had a lot of fun etc. until the end of year 11, when Rianna decided to leave (sob) and go to another sixth form, while I was lazy and just stayed at our current school/sixth form.

Sixth Form
We didn't keep in contact much in Sixth Form even though our colleges were literally down the road from each other; I guess A-Levels are just a crazy time and that kind of looked like that was end of our back and forth friendship. I started uni in Southampton in September 2011 and that was it..

Or so I thought..
One random day when I was in the SU, I heard someone call my name and since my name is crazily popular I ignored as per, assuming they were referring to one of the other billion 'Jess's' around. But then someone comes up to me and lo and behold, its Rianna - she's doing an Engineering degree at Southampton uni. We had a quick chat but both had to be on our way.Once we decided to do the 21 challenge, I realised this would be an awesome opportunity to reconnect with her - I know its a bit of a cheat because we did see each other sporadically since primary school but it works for me.

So a couple of days ago, we met up for lunch (it turns out we've lived about 30seconds away from each other for the past year - crazy, huh) in this cute little cafe called 'Kate's' and talked for about 3 or 4 hours; it was so nice!! I didn't take a picture of us because it was in the middle of revision/exam times so we were both looking grim (I'm talking the perpetual top knot, smudged eyeliner, jogging bottoms - the full works) but I've attached a pic of us circa 1997 at a school disco - totally retro. (I circled us in red - i'm so proud that I was able to do that, since I repel technology)

Jess xx

P.S. Fun little fact about Rianna, she has heterochromia iridum - she has two different coloured eyes!! One is blue and the other is green. I'm such a bad friend, I didn't notice until we were both 18, even though I've known her for years!!

xoxo