To My Childhood Bestfriend,
When I was trying to come up with a title for this article, I struggled with what to call you. You were my best friend for a majority of my life, and then that changed. I was going to call you my ex-bestfriend, however, "ex" makes it sound like this horrible thing happened between us or that we wronged one another. Which didn't happen. We just simply grew apart.
Throughout middle school, and the early years of high school, you were my person. Every single one of my tears, laughs, jokes, and opinions were shared with you, and we had this bond that was so unbelievably strong. We knew each other better than anyone else in the world did. We learned from each other, we leaned on each other, and we needed each other. We were there for each other during such a vulnerable time in our lives, a time when so much was happening, so much was changing. When one of us went through something traumatic we both went through it and we both felt it, and we both came out better on the other side because of it. I think that's real friendship, when it was so natural for us to feel the same emotions that the other one was feeling. Alone, I never would've been able to cope with all the heartbreak, drama, or seemingly end of the world moments. But I got through all of it, and I owe that all to you.
When we finally put on our brand new high school uniforms and started our freshmen year together, we thought we were invincible. We thought we knew exactly what we were doing, and we thought no one could hurt us, touch us, or especially tear us apart from each other. Well, turns out we were pretty naive (and by pretty naive I mean so totally and completely stupidly naive). We did get hurt, over and over and over again. We let boys get to us and we let them hurt us. There were so many moments during that period of our lives that we really thought our worlds were coming crashing down on us because a certain boy didn't like one of us back, or because we finally had to accept that 15 and 16 year old boys are nothing like the guys in all those Nicholas Sparks movies we watched. And then there were those times that really did affect us. Things that forced us to grow up at such a young age, things that no 15 or 16 year olds should ever have to face or worry about. Things that changed us, and shaped us into who we are today. However, there was never ever a time that we weren't there for each other. It was almost as though we developed a routine to put each other back together if one of us fell apart. And that routine never failed.
As we got older, we drifted. Isn't that the saddest thing in the world? No bad blood, no wrongdoings. A friendship that was once unbreakable, just gone because we grew apart. We started to come into ourselves more, and we slowly realized we had different dreams, different ideas, and ultimately different lives. It felt as though very slowly we started losing touch with each other, losing that connection. Then what felt like overnight, we became strangers. Our senior year of high school it was as though we didn't even know each other. We would pass each other in the halls and either look away to avoid eye contact with each other, or we would softly smile at each other, as if our friendship never happened. Every time I saw you I wondered if you were also thinking about all the memories, all the shared secrets, all the putting each other back together. I always wondered if you were thinking the same things as I was, but I never did anything about it. I never asked you. I never texted or called you to see how you were, and for that I am so sorry.
Years later and it seems as though things have finally fallen into place for both of us. I'm at my dream school and you're making a career out of something you love to do, something that makes you truly happy. We have recently reconnected and occasionally message each other when something from our past comes up or whenever we just want to see how the other one is doing. We now laugh over the things we once cried over in high school, and we remind each other that the things that seemed like the end of the world then actually ended up being some of the best things to ever happen to us. We talk about the more intense things we went through together throughout those years, and we laugh (or cringe... yeah mostly cringe) at the endless, embarrassing Facebook albums filled with pictures of us from those awkward (and shameful) stages of our lives. Sharing those little memories with you every couple months means more to me than you could possibly imagine.
I don't think many people ever really experience a friendship, a bond like the one we had. And I can't help but feel so sorry for those people who don't get that at least once in their lives. Thank you for being my rock during the shaky moments in my life, and for teaching me the value of friendship, sisterhood, and companionship. You will forever be my person, and I wouldn't trade any of those embarrassing Facebook albums for a single memory with you.
"Thomas Wolfe once said you can't go home again. Well, that's great for old Tom. But he wasn't a chick who made a pact with her friends when she was twelve to get together whenever any one of them needed each other." - Now and Then
