I Want to Stay Friends, But Our Values Are So Different

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ou know those childhood relationships that run so deep it’s almost like a layer of your own skin?

That’s me and Laurie.

Laurie’s mother, who I always called “Aunt Jill” even though she’s not my aunt, is my mother’s best friend from college. Growing up, Laurie’s family lived about a 15-minute drive from our home. We were like family. We were both Jewishly affiliated, and though neither was strictly frum, we certainly fell loosely into the (very) Modern Orthodox/Conservadox community in which we lived.

Laurie was a year behind me in school, and socially we had very different friends, but like cousins, we were always close and cared a lot about each another. Things changed in a huge way when I got to high school and “accidentally” ended up in NCSY. It was the first step in my leaving my coed summer camp, becoming more interested in shemiras hamitzvos, and having very frum role models. As my mom says, only partially tongue in cheek, “it was all downhill from there.” I ended up in a very frum seminary, and today I live with my avreich husband and five boys in a large frum community.

Laurie, on the other hand, went the stereotypical route for college kids in our community. She went on for a master’s and PhD, moved to an apartment in New York, and is only marginally observant. I understand the importance of keeping a connection with her — and I want to! — but what came so easily when I was single is now much more complicated.