As as a woman in my 20’s, I’ve had my fair share of “best friends,” from the ones I’ve known since pre-school, to the ones I met while living overseas, to the ones that came and then slowly faded away like the colors of an old photograph. Despite all of these people that floated in and out of my life like dandelion seeds, I only had one that I thought would truly last forever. I’m talking two or three phone calls per day, sharing life together, doing life together, standing next to each other at the altar forever. But then out of nowhere, it was gone. No explanation (well, not one that made sense), no rationale, just gone. That was a pain I was convinced I would never recover from. I spent the next two years of my life keeping everyone (and I mean everyone) at arm’s length. Was it lonely? Excruciatingly so. Did it make me feel like a hollowed-out tree trunk, just sitting there letting the seasons go by without anyone to share them with? Yep, but I told myself that this was better, because the closer someone is to you the greater their capacity to hurt you. So if no one is close to you, no one is going to hurt you. How’s that for twisted logic?

But then you happened. I never saw you coming, but you did anyway. It was unsettlingly scary for me at first, because I knew there was something about you that drew me to you, yet I remembered my promise to myself to never let anyone past a certain point. Guard your heart above all else, even at your own expense, right? However, time went on and I realized that you understood me, you knew me, without one single word escaping my lips. The only other person I’d ever experienced that with was my boyfriend. So I went to him and told him about you, but that I was scared because yes, I had been praying for an actual friend and yes, I had been waiting for two years for her to show up but…what if you ended up slashing my heart to pieces like everyone else had? It was something he said that caused me to crack the door ever so slightly to let you peek in.

“Honey, you have to let someone in sometime. You have to try.”

So, I did. You never forced your way in; you accepted how open my heart was at the moment and were okay with it. You crawled inside, learned me, came back out and continued to love me. I discovered that finally, I had found a friend who comprehended what it was like to be inside my brain with all it’s swirling thoughts. Finally, I had found a friend who would toss down a rope and pull me out of the dark pit I sometimes find myself in. Finally, I had found the friend I had been praying for with sore knees and tear-stained cheeks.

There’s no one I’d rather spend an entire day driving around trying to find a hiking trail with, or laying in bed late at night laughing so hard that the only noise coming out is a wheeze, or swapping boots with when both of our feet are hurting from our own, or dance it out with Meredith/Christina style (even though according to BuzzFeed we’re both Meredith). You are the one friend that knew me with only a single smile, and you are the friend who knows when I need help when I’m too weak to whisper the words myself. I never saw you coming, but I’m so glad that you did.

Love you muchly.