It was always Nicole who ended up as the injured one, but the more I spent time with her it became the opposite.
A couple of years ago I never would have suspected that we would become friends. Nicole was that crazy girl with the energy of a squirrel who climbed trees and knew, as well as could sing, every Disney song ever. Every time I saw her she had a new scrape, bruise, cut, or broken bone.

As we became friends, Nicole’s powers of manipulation convinced me to follow whichever adventurous plan the mastermind had connived that day. The more time I spent with her I realized my sense of wariness and prudence must increase much like Nicole’s newly developed sense of avoiding injury, as our adventures became more dangerous. 

The list of our adventures is endless; we’ve made everything from animation to zip lines (which ended up with a friend's almost broken hip thanks to the encouraging words of Nicole, “I jump from there all the time”).

My personal favorite spontaneous adventure was just last week. As soon as we returned from the strenuous hours of school we needed some fun. After pacing a few laps around the house, with the occasional pitstop for a refuel of sugary snacks, it was decided that we would build a water slide.

Nicole had the perfect hill in her back yard. For if it snowed here in good old California it would be the ideal hill for sledding- steep enough to gain momentum and long enough for a good distance.

We began to construct our slide out of the thickest black trash bags we could find, but soon discovered that there was not enough to make a sufficient slide. Instead we decided to wear the trash bags and bathe ourselves in vegetable oil to reduce the friction against the arid grass.

Then, as our hearts pounded with excitement, we raced to the top of the hill, took our positions, and dashed towards the decline. We dove and expected to glide along the grassy slope just like the penguins do on snowy ones. The tenacious grass, however, rudely refused us and our bodies slammed against the dry, wintery earth; leaving nasty bruises along our sides. 

Dripping with water after taking a dip in the icy pool to rinse ourselves from the oil, we changed and decided there was still time to make a cake. We searched the internet for cakes and found one that resembled a stack of pancakes. So that’s what we did. We made a stack of buttery pancakes out of cake.

My point is not to glorify my friends or tell a small excerpt from the book of our adventures, but merely to epitomize a childlike, simplistic friendship because those types of friendships are the ones that last.

These types of friendships, as I have noticed, are slowly being ousted by  an electronic world. I have friends whose eyes are constantly glued to their phones and are captivated by the experiences of others- when in reality, the should be experiencing things on their own. It is near impossible, in my opinion, for a human being to fully connect and interact with the reality of electronics and the reality around them at the same time.

I can truthfully say that the friends who have chosen to connect with me over their electronics have become closer to me and life-long friendships have been made from our childlike adventures.