Thoughts of ye olden days

I woke up this morning thinking about my childhood. Usually with thoughts of my childhood, comes thoughts of my childhood friends.
Brandy was the coolest. I looked up to her so much and imagined her as my big sister. At that time I had always wanted a sister because I didn't have any. One of the games we used to play was similar in format to "house, " except when we played it, we called it "Elizabeth and Amy." Brandy was Elizabeth, the older sister. I was Amy. Elizabeth was her favorite name, Amy was mine.
Elizabeth and Amy were everything Brandy and Michelle weren't. They were adults, for one thing. They had boyfriends. They lived together in a small house and basically did what they pleased. Isn't that what adults do? we thought. Brandy was closer to being an adult than I was. She was eight years older than me. As I got older, I couldn't help but wonder what possessed Brandy to willfully hang out with a little girl when she was a teenager. She knew the way I looked at her, I guess. I admired everything about her. In my seven-year-old eyes, being a teenager was the ultimate experience. Well, I've been there, done that. It wasn't as great as I had imagined it would be.
Brandy had a great deal of patience. What I remember the most is the way she treated me like an equal. I never felt the age difference, except when I was being a brat and she had to set me straight. I was a good kid, for the most part, but I was often in need of being set straight. Brandy wasn't afraid to tell me when I was being a brat. Sure, it hurt more than when my parents got on me. I mean, she was my best friend, but I think her words had more of an impact on me than my parents'.
Elizabeth was tall and beautiful. She had long, curly hair that went down to her waist. Brandy was cute. She had short dark hair that was always kept in a boyish style. I think Cindy was afraid to let her be beautiful. While Brandy always wore jeans and large T-shirts with a baseball cap perched on her head, Elizabeth wore stylish, trendy clothes. Elizabeth had an un-ending supply of gorgeous outfits.
Amy changed a lot. I could never decide what I wanted to be like. Usually Amy's hair was always the same. She had very long, blonde crimped hair. Amy seemed to emulate my Aunt Crissy in a lot of ways. I had short brown hair. I had caught lice from a my best friend, Jayme, at school (I had best friends around every corner, back then). I was allergic to the special shampoo, so my hair had to be cut short in order to get rid of the lice. Grandpa took me to get my ears pierced that year for my birthday, so I wouldn't look so much like a boy. I guess you could say I was cute. Amy was beautiful. She was the type of beauty that could stop traffic. Elizabeth and Amy often did stop traffic, too.
We, as our aliases, partied all the time. Brandy had some really cool lights in her room. She had a stop light, a lava lamp and a disco ball. We would turn off the real light and turn on the cool lights for our parties. We would both get in our fake cars (convertibles, naturally) and dirve to our boyfriends' house. They lived together, too. Usually Brandy had the same name for her boyfriend. Mine, like everything else Amy, changed to fit the name of the boy I had a crush on at the time. Brandy maintained crushes for much longer than I did.
After we picked up our boyfriends we would go to a big party with all kinds of cool people, great music (Brandy had the best tapes-Queen, Vanilla Ice, Mariah Carey, Amy Grant...), and flashing lights.
Ah, those were the good old days. Last I heard, Brandy is no longer speaking to Cindy. She lived in Michigan with her husband last time I saw her. I think she has a baby. Now we are both adults. It's not nearly as glamorous as we made it when we were kids.