I never realized there would be a day that I would look around myself and realize I no longer had a best friend. No longer did I have someone I could text and know she’d respond right away with a funny gif to make me feel better, no inside jokes that everyone wouldn’t understand while we’d be laughing our asses off. No longer would there be someone I’d feel comfortable enough to hold hands with at a baseball game so drunk old men wouldn’t hit on either of us. We never shared clothes (well, she wore my stuff because she and I were completely different sizes), and we never shared detox experiences (because I knew better than to eat a full dinner after drinking minty lemon water). But for about six years, we shared our lives together. Two proms, six birthdays, two family trips, and lots of weekends spent napping together later, and I don’t even know what classes she’s taking this semester. No, seriously. I didn’t know when she came home for Winter Break (which she didn’t), and I don’t know whether or not she has a boyfriend or not (which I honestly don’t know).
And, yet, whenever a conversation leads to me being able to relate something to an action she had done in the past, I find myself saying, “Yeah, when my best friend did this,” or “Yeah, my best friend told me that she..”
But why do I do that? Is it because it’s easier to say three words versus “Yeah, this person I used to know really well”? Or is it because I don’t feel like receiving the awkward looks when I say, “Yeah, my ex-best friend…”
Or maybe it’s because, deep down, I wish she was still my best friend.
She was the only one who really understood me. She’d binge watch “Supernatural” and “Sherlock” with me, and we’d spend hours together just doing homework and reading. We’d go to the movies and on dinner dates together; we’d share our deepest secrets together.
And then we stopped.
Honestly, I got used to it. She and I both led different lives – different schools, different jobs, different aspirations…
Different ideas about what being a good friend meant.
For me, it’s not partying with people almost ten years older than you. It’s not lying to your parents or drinking without their permission. It’s not taking a random day to skip classes and drive to another state. It’s about deciding to bake a homemade cake and sticking it into the fridge right after it comes out of the oven so it’ll cool faster and eating it without icing. It’s getting tummy-aches from eating too much raw Toll House cookie dough. It’s going out to make snow angels when you’re dressed in just t-shirts and jeans because you didn’t anticipate the weather change.
It’s about respecting the decisions someone has to make based on the situation they’re in.
We’ve never discussed it. We’ve never even officially told each other off or how we feel. And maybe that’s our problem for not being mature enough to handle saying, “I’m sorry I’m not the type of person you feel a friend should be, but our time is done.” But, maybe it’s because I know I’m not ready to fully admit that I have to move on and lose what we had.
We called ourselves “soul sisters” – in fact, she deemed it that way because she felt that our soulmates would be our romantic partners, which I had no problem with – but I don’t think we really were. We evolved into different people with different personalities, and we had a lot of differences early on. But, for a while, she was the one person I could count on.
The fact of the matter is, no one will ever be able to replace her. I mean, no one should. She made my life a certain way for a certain reason; she served her purpose, and now that’s that. I may never know what that purpose actually ever was, and that’s fine. She will always hold a special place in my heart, because we shared moments together that – at least for me – we haven’t shared with anyone else.
And that’s why I still call her my best friend.