I’m not mad, why would I be?
It’s been years since I’ve really talked to you. Years since we’ve laughed in my kitchen so loud that my parents would come down the stairs to tell us to go to bed. Years since we put Hersheys bars under your laptop to make them warm and gooey. Years since I’ve called you my best friend.
Lately I’ve seen article after article regarding losing a best friend or finally letting go of resentment or even blaming them for your parting.
But, that’s not what this is.
Hello Old Friend,
I wanted to thank you. Thank you for all of the memories we shared throughout my childhood. Thank you for becoming a part of my family. Thank you for always providing me with summer fun and most importantly teaching me what a best friend is. Regardless of what we are now there is no denying that you were my best friend.
Sometimes I will be at school or doing something and I’m hit with a memory of something we used to say or do. I think about you fairly frequently and I know my family does too because you were truly a second daughter to them. I thought about you when my Grandma passed away, I thought about you when I left for college, I thought about you at my grad party and I thought about you today while I was sitting in the library.
I can’t say for sure what made me think of you today. But it made me start thinking about our old memories and the good times. I hold not a single ill feeling toward you, how could I?
I thought about it more and more and I realized, I don’t think I can hold any feelings toward you anymore because I don’t know you. I will always respect and love the girl I once knew but I don’t know who you are anymore.
We’ve just gone our separate ways. It’s not a bad thing and I’m sure you feel the same way about me. Back then I could have answered anything about you. I could have told them your favorite food, the color of your parent’s bed spread, how you loved Aaron Carter, or even your first cats name but now… nothing.
Every once in a while I’ll see something you posted on social media and I think what it would be like to meet you again. I see you making friends and doing great things away at school and I smile.
I don’t live under the false notion that we could ever be a fraction of what we used to be and frankly I don’t think it’s truly what is best for us now, but I wanted you to know I am happy for you.
I’m happy you found a school that can help fulfill your dreams. I’m happy you found a group of people who make you feel at home. I’m happy you are happy.
So I guess what I really wanted to say to you was I hope you have amazing adventures, I hope you graduate top of your class, and I hope you have an amazing career.
I hope you get married to the love of you life and have a beautiful wedding. And I just hope that on your wedding day you think of me, if only for a second. Think about how we always said I would be the one standing beside you as your maid of honor and I hope you smile because you both know were in better places now and this is how it was meant to be.
That is what I hope for you because that is what I hope you wish for me as well.
Here’s to many years of friendship, love, and respect.
I wish you nothing but the best in everything you do.
P.S. I really hope your mom never found those notes we hid under your shingles.
-Taylor