Today I saw something funny and wanted to tell you about it before I remembered that you aren’t around to hear it. So, instead, I buried it in the same place I buried my hurt over the way our friendship ended. But I’ve decided to dig this up in case you ever need to hear it.

I want to say that I truly am sorry that things ended. You were one of my closest friends and now it's like we’re strangers. I cannot and will not pretend like we were never close because we were, and you helped shape me into the person I am today. You are a part of me just as much as the freckles that dance across the bridge of my nose.

I will never forget the trips to restaurant where we built towers out of the coffee creamer or the late nights where we stayed up to talk about our dreams. But when you got together with your boyfriend, our diner trips became further and further apart; the slot in the schedule instead filled with dinner dates and the sleepovers with me turned into sleepovers with him.

All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, so I supported you in this whirlwind romance; I kept my mouth shut when you blew off our plans, because who was I to get in the way of love? I held in my comments when my feelings were hurt because I didn’t want to hurt yours. And now here we are.

The severance of our friendship was both a slow drift, a gradual weakling of a bond I thought to be secure and also a sudden disruption of my being. Like a car crash, I didn’t see it coming until it was too late, and for that we are both at fault. I resent him for taking my place at your side, you for putting it up for grabs and myself for not doing enough to prevent it. But resentment is not what I want to remember us by, so instead, I’ll put on the big girl pants we grew into together, put aside our difficulties and instead celebrate the good times.

I hope he is everything you thought he was and I hope that he is there for you in the ways that I was. Most especially, I hope that he is worth giving up your friends for. But if he is not, if a day comes where you do not feel loved, valued and cherished in your relationship with him, please know that I will be here for you. My arms will be open, as will the shelf in my freezer with some of that rocky road ice-cream that made us sick to our stomachs that time we binge watched "Grey’s Anatomy." I will not say that the same amazing friendship would immediately resume because that would be a lie; we are both different people than we were then, but maybe we can make a new friendship that is amazing in a new way.

At the end of the day, you are still the girl who sang (butchered) those songs on the radio with me; who cried tears of laughter and sadness with me; who taught me how to make fun of myself when I (inevitably) embarrassed myself. You are still that girl, just with a few new patches on your life’s quilt. But that’s OK, because I am too.