My best friend, Sonia, and I met when we were three and four. I was so young I don’t even remember the exact moment; I just have to go off what she told me happened. Growing up shy, I stayed hidden in the back of my aunt’s boutique when Sonia and her mom strolled in one day.
We didn’t end up talking at all; we just sat on the sofa watching SpongeBob and snacking on M&M’s. Our parents ended up arranging a playdate for us to go on later that week. From there on out, we were inseparable and spent most of our time at each other’s houses. Our families became friends, and we spent a lot of our childhood at the beach. As we got into middle school, unlike a lot of my other childhood friends who went their own ways, Sonia and I remained best friends, telling each other everything and being present for each other’s biggest moments, like school dances and Christmas Eve.
Sonia delivered the devastating news to me that she was moving to Louisiana when I was fresh into my first year of high school. The worst part was, being a year older than me, she had just gotten her driver’s license and a Jeep that we loved driving around in. Our teenage life in Tampa was just beginning, and we had to say goodbye to it. Serving as the only form of comfort, we promised each other to keep in touch over FaceTime and visit each other on our school breaks.
Contrary to our promise, for the first year or so, Sonia and I didn’t do very well at staying in contact. It wasn’t until she moved again to Syracuse in February of 2020 that we got close again. The isolation from COVID-19 kept us away from our other friends at school actually gave us a chance to make time for each other, something that usually only happened over holiday breaks when school wasn’t demanding our time. Over the rest of the spring semester and throughout the summer, we grew as close as we once were.
From then on, my junior and senior years felt like we both still lived in the same city. We made time to see each other, whether it was Sonia coming back to Tampa or me flying to Syracuse, driving to Miami where her dad lived, or sleeping on her dorm floor in D.C. when she first started college. We were fortunate enough to have our parents encouraging us to visit each other.
Now, even though we’re at different universities, our long-distance friendship feels like clockwork. Yes, we’re used to it now, but we spent years learning how to make time for each other amidst our families, friend groups, school, and boyfriends, all of which are constantly changing our availability to talk. Despite our challenges, we’ve learned the value of communication and understanding for each other leading such different lives. We both operate with the understanding that with age comes less time in the day, but we do our best to work around it.
To Sonia, I love you more than I love Taylor and you love Harry. Thank you for the most profound and special bond that I wouldn’t want to share with anyone else. I love you from Miami to Syracuse and everything in between.
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