I remember the first day that I met you. We were in third grade and it was the annual “Crazy Hat Day” at school. I showed up with a boring hat so you put grass on it to make it “crazy.” This was followed by continuous laughter on our part. Your sense of humor became my first bond with you.

After a short amount of time, we connected in so many other ways. We came from very similar worlds and I don’t know how the universe knew that we needed to meet, but we were inseparable once we did. We knew the drama and what having a blended/divorced family felt like. We also knew what it was like to be an only child in that situation. At the end of the day, we always had each other. I always felt that you were a part of my family and that I was a part of yours. Our family vacations always included you in them and I was always included in yours. Our trip to Disney World was an amazing trip that I will always remember. I also love the memories of you came on my family’s vacation to San Diego. None of those vacations, nor the memories that came from them, would have ever been the same without you.

Every summer you would travel 3,000 miles to visit me at my dad's. You knew every side of me and every part of my world. We argued like sisters and loved like sisters. We knew when were being brats or when we needed each other the most. We knew each other's family baggage and where we came from. Most importantly, we knew how to laugh for hours. We never held back when it came to being silly. We could die of laughter and nobody understood. We could laugh until our stomachs cringed in pain. We connected in a way that many people don’t get to experience in a lifetime.

When high school hit, we wouldn’t be the ones who were going out drinking, we would be the ones who were at home with our moms, watching movies. We would be the ones making late night runs to Dairy Queen and pulling all-nighters. We would be the ones finding YouTube videos that we thought were ridiculously funny.

One of my favorite memories was when we stayed in your grandparents' downstairs and pretended that we lived together on our own for a week. We got in a fight that first night because we didn’t realize that it took over an hour to cook a lasagna and we were having our parents over for dinner in 30 minutes. When I look back on that, I can’t help but wish that I could turn back time and relive it. As I write this, I get teary eyed from remembering how great life was with you in it and how we will never find that again.

We talked about our hopes, dreams and, of course, our weddings. Now that I've recently gotten married, I've thought about you so many times. I looked back at the friendship that we had and if someone would have told me that my future didn’t have you in it, I would have called them crazy. I never thought that our lives would go separate ways. That something so strong could be broken devastates me.

I remember when we made “Best Friend Contracts” that we signed in sixth grade, promising that we could never not be best friends, no matter what. Were we naive or did our 12-year-old selves fear the reality of even the strongest relationships not working out? Did we know, deep down, that life could separate us and we wanted to hold on to what we had for forever? What would our 12-year-old selves say to us now? They would probably give us hope and insight that we needed at 17 when we let our friendship end so rapidly. The children who we once were probably would have reminded us of what we would be fighting for. We would have been fighting for 50 more years of that laughter and the friendship that we loved so much. We would have been fighting for having each other during moments in our lives like getting married, having children, getting our first real jobs, and even losses.

I remember when we stopped talking and how I let my anger get the best of me. I feel like it was so long ago. If I could go back to our junior year of high school and change it, I would. I still wonder if that would have made the outcome any different.

I was so hurt by how you were changing and the decisions that you were making, but, most of all, I was hurt that you were lying to me about it. I don’t show my emotions very well when I am hurt, so I was stubborn and I completely cut you out of my life when you probably needed me the most.

Your life took a very dark turn and if I could take all that pain away, I would.

Life did a complete flip from the careless days of walking around the mall or going to late movies and having to call our moms from the payphone at midnight to come get us. I don’t know why life drove us apart or got so hard, but I wish that it didn’t. I wish that you had been standing next to me on my wedding day, sharing that incredible step in my life.

You were a huge part of my life and who I am today. You were my best friend, my sister, and my other half. Many don’t understand it, but that is only because many haven’t experienced such a friendship.

Even though it ended, I would never give up any of those days. There are so many good memories with you that it would take me months to tell them all.

So, wherever you are or wherever you are going, take those memories with you. They have brought me joy and laughter every day by knowing that I was lucky enough to experience a friendship like ours.