PSA: This is a personal and brutally honest letter, it's not as cutesy as the title may suggest.
Dear Best Friend,
It’s days like this when I appreciate you more than ever. Days when I feel small, inadequate, unloved or am simply experiencing every negative thought or feeling conceivable (I blame hormones).
While trying to describe the way I’ve handled waves of emotion like these in the past, the first word that popped into my mind was family. They’re my rocks. In the past all it’s taken was heading out to the living room, curling up on the couch, and being in their presence to erase those feelings of self-doubt and weakness. But the more I thought about it, I realized that wasn't quite true. I’ve needed more than that to overcome those waves. I would call or text you, or we'd randomly sit in my car and have hour-long conversations in what felt like 15 minutes. It was you that threw the life preserver and then pulled me in. Always, not sometimes, I would hang up, put down the phone or drive off feeling loved, complete and powerful.
Today I came back to my dorm room having no idea what to do with myself. I was drowning in those toxic feelings. So, I picked up a pen and started writing, letting my thoughts pour onto the paper without censoring them. By the time I’d hit three-quarters of a page, I was writing about you. I became aware that even without my family, I’d feel much less lost if I had my other half: you. We truly are like two sides of a coin. You’re social, confident, inspirational, a natural leader. You can make friends with someone in two sentences. You're outgoing and a true people person. I’m moderately antisocial, too bluntly honest for most people's taste, unwilling to step outside my comfort zone, abrasive and have a tendency to judge harshly (I’m working on that). While we are two sides of a coin, it is certainly the same coin (can we be a penny? I like pennies). Independent, stubborn, opinionated, passionate and driven are all words that best describe us both.
So, thank you. Thank you for being my other half in a way that no one else, not even a husband, will ever be. Thank you for being my life preserver. Thank you for empowering me. Thank you for talking me down when I’m being one hundred percent irrational about something I said, something I did, another friend, a guy or life. Thank you for pushing me outside of my comfort zone. Thank you for being my go-to. Thank you for listening to me whine about something insignificant in the grand scheme of things when you have 574 other things you need to do. Thank you for laughing at cat videos that, if I showed to anyone else, they would just look at me blankly while I nearly pee myself. Thank you for never tearing me down, even at your roughest times. Thank you for letting that shy but crazy third grader convince you to play soccer. Thank you for being the reason she is who and where she is today. Thank you (this may be slightly in advance) for rocking right beside me when we’re grandparents, probably still reading YA books.
Most importantly of all, thank you for being my soul sister.
Love,
Your cracked, irrational, slightly bitchy, and stubborn best friend.
