At the end of elementary school a new student named Sydney enrolled in our classes. I saw her drawing during recess once and I struck up a conversation.
Sydney was a really cool person. She liked to draw and play guitar. I don’t remember much of our friendship in middle school, however when we hit high school we really started hanging out.
Sydney was the first person I met that genuinely found me funny and I loved that about her. I would recite stand up that I had watched at home to her, doing accents and flourishes and she would crack up. I remember we were walking home from a football game and she asked me to recite a bit by a comic named Sean Cullen over and over again till she was in tears.
When I got my driver’s license I would tell each parent that I was staying with the other parent, then go and stay at Sydney’s. They hated each other and I was the “good kid” so they never bothered to check. Or they did and they just didn’t care. So I would periodically “live” at Sydney’s house.
Sydney’s parents were John and Claudette. I didn’t know much about them personally, but later I would learn John was an alcoholic. Claudette was the sweetest, sassiest little lady. She also thought I was funny, but she also loved me like a daughter it felt. I think she knew that my family was fucked up (she was “friends” with my mother) and that I needed to escape their houses.
So Sydney and I would stay up till 3am/4am playing games in the living room, then we would pass out on the couch until school time. Our games of choice were Harvest Moon or Dance Dance Revolution.
There was an ongoing joke between me and Sydney about Harvest Moon, because when it was my turn to play, Sydney would get upset that I wasn’t farming fast enough. One time, she left me to go get some coffee in the kitchen, and while she was gone I carved the name of the girl I was after into the farm land with my hoe. She came back and thought that was hilarious for some reason and then made me cover it up and plant crops.
When Sydney hit puberty, her body changed. The size of her breasts were a huge stressor for her and, like me, she struggled with gender identity. I don’t remember her ever making me feel uncomfortable about my own breasts, even when she was lamenting to me about the size of hers. I learned about chest binding from her, because she would sometimes wear a binder.
Sydney was the one who introduced me to anime and quickly after that, Yaoi (gay manga). We would go to book stores and read manga on the floor of the aisles. I remember one time we had a confused discussion about how gay sex works. We were like, 13! Eventually Sydney would ask me to write gay fan fiction about the Beatles. I never wrote anything graphic, but she still loved it. One year we went to Anime Expo together and we dressed up as a pair of boyfriends from an anime called Gravitation. I will place the photo of the character I dressed as here:
I remember when we went to the expo, multiple young women wanted to touch my stomach because I was skinny and toned from running track.
I’m not sure how old I was when I started taking drum lessons, but Sydney was a big supporter of that. She immediately nick named me Ringo and we started a Beatles cover band. It was a lot of fun having practice with her, I would lug my drum set over and set it up in their living room. Sometimes we would play Led Zepplin but DAMN those drums were hard.
I don’t know if Sydney ever had feelings for me. Everyone thought we were lesbians, including my father. I think Sydney and I were kindred souls that happened to land in the right moment to find each other. We both weren’t conventionally attractive, we both had a strange sense of humor. We both enjoyed sex related things a little too much. I think if I hadn’t met Sydney, I would have hurt myself a lot more during high school. She was always so funny and kind, and speaking to her was always the best part of my day when I did.
I don’t remember the last conversation I had with Sydney. When I fell for her cousin, I really fucked things up. I don’t know if she looks back at our friendship with fondness, or if at all. I think of her and her family now and then.
Leave a Reply