Wow, I just found out something incredible to me.
So I've been in a super nostalgic mood of late. I was talking to my sister about just random stuff, and somehow got on the topic of one of my best friends as a little kid, up until the age of 10 or 11 or so, who happened to be a girl. She was a bit of a tomboy, and I guess the two of us sort of met in the middle between feminine and masculine. Her mom never liked that much and I feel pushed her to trying to be more feminine, and when there was a particular incident she used that as an excuse to say we couldn't be friends anymore. Was a huge emotional blow to me and I missed her for years. So talking about her today I got curious and looked her up. After some brief searching, I'm about 95%-ish sure I found her. If it is her, she is a lesbian professor of women's studies and queer theory at a notable university. Which I can't even begin to tell you how happy that makes me.

(Assuming it is actually her.) To know she came out the other side of her childhood without being cornered into being something she's wasn't... I feel so good just thinking about it. I also confess, there's a slight bit of vindictiveness against her mom at play, because I like the idea that she didn't get her way after what she did to me.

Mostly though I find it fascinating, because what a pair we turned out to be.
(Evidence it is her: Same rare spelling of name. Same middle initial. Right age. Reference on facebook page to visiting her family on the GA coast.)
(The incident: I had a lot of temper issues with the anxiety and what turned out to be the blossoming dysphoria. I would bottle things up until they burst. One day, was playing outside with my friend, her roughly 8 year old brother, my brother, few other people, and her 5 year old sister was hanging around but not really playing. Some dumb kid thing happened where her little brother refused to admit he was out in a game when I thought he was or something to that effect. I started to lose my temper and punched him in the arm. Not cool, totally shouldn't have, but as far as kids go it was really minor, and wasn't even like a punch-punch, I'm sure people know what I mean about the random arm punches. But, I realized I was losing my temper and made myself turn around and go inside to cool down. Storming off while I did so of course. Well, her little 5 year old sister happened to be standing by the door, and she thought I was coming to beat her up when I was just trying to walk past her. So the sister runs and tells her mom I was trying to beat her up. I understand that, she was 5, she didn't know what was going on. But instead of sitting down and talking through it like reasonable people and finding out what actually happened, their mom turns it into a huge neighborhood wide scandal. Which I've always believed was because she didn't like her daughter playing with a "boy".)
Edit: Also, I now have an additional debate about reaching out to her. I think it would be fascinating. I found her twitter and e-mail address readily (public because of the college thing, not obtained weirdly), but that is 26 years ago.