I’ve known Hanna since I was seven. We were in the same class in first grade, even though we didn’t really become friends then. Hanna has a talent for drawing people to her, and I was very shy back then. She intimidated me, she and all the girls around her. But still, we were in the same class, went to the same parties, the same field trips, shared Kirke – until seventh grade, when Hanna suddenly came to school in black-dyed hair and black eye-liner around her eyes. She wrote poetry and I wanted to become a writer. We started hanging out, maybe mostly because we listened to other bands and read other books than the other girls in our class. And we became extremely tight. She went on family holidays together with my family, I went on family holidays with hers. In a sense, she was my first really close friend.
Kirke started in our class in second grade. She made this instantaneous impression, making everyone fall for her. She has this natural presence, a way of being that just can’t be ignored. We became friends, in the way I guess most people are friends in elementary school, playing field hockey on school brakes, occasionally inviting each other over for sleepovers. Then, in seventh grade, we realized that we had a shared interest in singing, and we ended up audition for the same choir, being accepted to the same choir. So that meant us spending one afternoon a week together, doing homework and usually eating dinner at her mom’s, before going to choir practice.
Back in seventh grade, Hanna and Kirke did not really hang out that much. They had been besties in fourth, fifth grade, but now that Hanna was writing poetry and listening to Swedish independent pop, while Kirke was doing the whole girl-from-the-projects-thing, they didn’t hang out much. But by ninth grade, they had found back to each other again and we were the golden trio, always sitting next to each other in science class, going on walks after lunch, sharing the hotel room when we were on that last, intense class trip to Greece.
In high school, going to different schools, Hanna doing fashion design, Kirke media and me studying social sciences like a maniac, we still managed to sit hours upon hours in dark, smoky cafes (this was back when it was still legal to smoke inside), talking about politics, the patriarchal structures of our society, relationships and boys. They were the most important people in my life.
We’ve had our ups and downs since then. Hanna and I barely spoke at all for a couple of years after high school. Kirke is a serious workaholic, and a fully fledged professional assistant/producer/director in the Swedish media business, which is quite an achievement for someone who is only 25. But it also means that for months on end, I have no idea what’s happening with her. Both Kirke and Hanna have significant others, and I bury myself in school and student council duties. We’re older and our friends aren’t the most important things in our lives anymore.
But still, we stick together. Seventeen years, and there is still so much excitement. If I’d met any of them today, we probably wouldn’t have become friends. Heck, we probably wouldn’t even have met. But now, after becoming friends in elementary school due to us being the ones that were least dissimilar in the class, they’re the closest thing to non-blood related family I have. We meet up in Belgrade, and it just clicks. Just like in high school. We disagree and we fight and things are in no way perfect, but they’re there. Always. With a persistence that can only be achieved between people that have shared so many essential life events together, so many years.
And it’s funny. How you just know, even while a photo is being taken, that this, this is going to be a keeper. Something to take out in 30 years and laugh about, together with the other two. I can’t imagine life going any other way.
Katja Malmborg 