I went to my friend's Bar Mitzva

So yesterday, I went to my friend's Bar Mitzva. Even though I was sick and runny-nosed and blechy, I had an amazing time. The service was pretty fun in the first place, watching a friend of mine since preschool become a Bar Mitzva. But I really had the time of my life at the evening party.
There was ice cream there - which of course means I got hyper. There was also an abundance of board games, a dance floor, and a cleared area for ball games. Tag was played throughout the hall.
I spent the party mostly running around and dancing, though I did play a game of Bananagrams against some adults who had a considerably larger vocabulary than I did. I obviously didn't win, but I didn't come in last place either, of which I was quite proud.
I was one of two girls invited because of a friendship with the actual center of attention, and I was the only girl chasing the boys around. I challenged one to an arm wrestling match, which he declined. I ended up chasing him around the hall at least five times. Then the Bar Mitzva boy started mocking me (Ooooo-you-like-him kind of mocking) so I chased him. They ended up fending me off by tossing hula hoops at me (don't ask). I officially have a reputation among the boys for being "scary."
After that, I decided to go dance. It was really a lot of fun just to do improvisation and let myself go loose. I haven't done that in a long time, just dancing like no one is watching and without holding any sort of structure in my body. I knew a lot of the people there since I was about three, so it didn't matter how crazy I got, not really.
Another highlight of the evening was being reminded that once upon a time I had been the "white queen." When we were three, the Bar Mitzva boy had named all his classmates after chess pieces. He had been the white king, I think, and I had been the white queen. I remember the titles of a few other classmates (they were bishops and pawns), but I had forgotten about it. I think he was the first one to teach me a bit of chess. It's weird how I had forgotten about it until someone had reminded me, and then it all came flooding back.
It isn't often that I see my preschool friends, but when I do, I love it. There's a connection about having been friends since we were two feet tall that you can't erase. We all have different friends that we usually spend time with, but it's always a lot of fun to just come back to the friends that we've been tied to the longest.
Congrats to Noah!