Undoubtedly, perhaps the simplest yet purest friendship is childhood friendship, a friendship that comes to us quickly and without tricks or ulterior motives. Those first friendships are almost always discovered by chance and, together with those friends, we discover that we can care about and love people other than ourselves or our parents. Together with those childhood friends we discover that life expands infinitely beyond our home.
Many times, friendship at this age begins with the simple question: Do you want to play? At that moment there are no judgments or second opinions, the answer of yes or no will be enough for friendship to blossom. These childhood friends become our accomplices and embark with us on adventures of colors, puddles, blankets, plastic toys, candy broken in two.
With childhood friendship also comes two concepts that will stay with us for the rest of our lives: empathy and conflict. We learn that friendship comes with both in equal parts. Then, an accidental push or a fight over a toy becomes our first great existential drama, the question arises: what if our friend no longer loves us? Then comes the forgiveness that can come as acceptance of letting lose to win and keeping our friend, because he or she is already more important than all our toys together, than all the goodies in the world.
Sadly, not everything is rosy, and it is a stage where we will know lies and betrayal. That secret we told and trusted is discovered, or our friend decides that today he wants to spend time with someone else and leaves us aside, sad moments that will help us forge our identity and future way of behaving in society. Hence the importance of supervised and controlled friendship in the early stages of life.
Undoubtedly, there is a metaphor that I like to use for friendship at this stage: the friend as gardener, involuntary gardener of the emotions of his companions, allowing the most varied flowers to grow and stay alive or wither.
Of course life goes on, and not all childhood friendships will last forever. They will change with a change of school, the formation of new personalities and interests, or a simple move, but even those that don't last will leave their mark on us. And with the goodbye they will teach us that affection, love, does not need to be eternal to be beautiful, and in the spontaneous and fleeting also lies beauty. Although time has passed and faces and voices have been erased from our memories, we will carry that unmistakable feeling that someone accompanied us at that moment when we began to be human.
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