Dear best friend,

Remember when we were in elementary school, and we met for the first time? It was at Sunday school and you were new to the church. Somehow we became close friends, and I’ll never forget that time of innocence when everything in the world was wide open for us. Remember when you moved to Pennsylvania? We were going into middle school. When I found out you were moving away, it was an uncomfortable feeling, because I felt at that moment we were going to drift and our childhood memories would fade with it. Instead, we talked every day. We emailed back and forth telling each other about our days. As we got older, the emails turned into texting and the daily talks turned into fun gossip. Even though we were thousands of miles away from each other, we were still together every single day. Anytime we visited each other the reuniting was so sweet.

When you came to Florida for college, I had never felt so close to you. Visiting you at your university would be the highlight of a few of my weekends. Ice cream and coffee dates and walking a mile to the best tanning spot in your town because there was nowhere to park. These are the sweet and simple days that I will always cherish, because growing up means growing into new stages, and that my friend, is something you have done.

We are at the stage in life where it is time to figure out our future. It is a very important stage, because the decisions we make now will affect us forever. I look up to you, best friend, because you figured out what the next stage of your life was going to be, and you jumped into it without looking back. You found love and you knew right away. You got married and are now pregnant with a beautiful baby girl to be. I have never seen life flash by so fast. I remember when we were fifteen and we were walking around one of your favorite places in the world: Gator Land. Why you love Gator Land, I will never understand, but we were fifteen and being an adult seemed like a reality that would always be far out of reach.

So best friend, I’m writing this letter because I want to describe to you how proud of you I am. You’ve been independent your whole life. You moved to the other side of the country to start your life far away from home. You traveled across the world to see and learn about a culture that you’re passionate about. You’ve had days where things seemed like they were falling into place, and you’ve had days where it seemed like everything was falling apart. You carry yourself like a true woman of leadership, and I am blessed to look up to you. I am writing this letter because I want to give you my blessing. I want to give you my blessing for jumping into a new stage of experience. I want to give your husband my blessing, because I trust he will take care of you just like I tried to do for years, even being thousands of miles away. I give your child my blessing, because I know she will grow up to be a beautiful young lady of power, just like you.