By Jemma Dooreleyers
It is a beautiful day at the end of November and I was inspired to write something just as beautiful. As I was sitting in my common room, with a cup of peppermint tea steaming in the mug you gave me for my birthday and admiring the homemade paper snowflakes on the window casting shadows on my notebook; I was thinking of skating rinks and Christmas morning and the morning after a snow storm. Although all of these things are very beautiful, they could not possibly compare to what popped in my head next. And that was a memory of you, my very best friend.
You see, whenever I think of the winter, I also get a sense of great sadness. I hate the cold and the dark and the middle of it when there is no foreseeable end in sight. That is why I think you’re in my life for a reason. Because you were born, smack dab in the middle of February. My least favourite month. It’s the coldest, it’s the darkest and it’s around the time in the winter where you feel like the snow will never melt and your feet will never recover from frostbite. But every year, in the middle of February, when the snow banks are up to my eyeballs and the frost is permanently stuck to my window pain, I’m reminded of something nice and warm. Because its your birthday and I cannot thank you enough for that. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, there is something else that I would like to thank you for and that is my discovery of myself love. There are many instances in which you helped my through this journey, but there is one in particular that sticks out in my mind.
Let me paint the picture. It’s the end of September, two weeks after my birthday and it is unseasonably warm. We woke up late for me and early for you and made crepes for breakfast. We spent the rest of the morning getting ready. Picking out the outfits we feel the best in, doing our hair how we feel comfortable and telling each other how good we good we looked the whole way through. You see, we were in the same photography class and we had a project for a mark and a mission for self love to fulfill. We drove out to the prettiest parts of our city because we wanted good backgrounds and set to work. This was a very good day. We walked through the city together in the sunshine and everytime we thought one or the other looked just right, we would make her stop and stay very still so we could get the best angle for her. It wasn’t hard. We spent the day wandering around downtown, shopping in the market and drinking tea and buying flowers for our moms. We spent the next week picking out which photographs did each other justice with a lot of “oh my god’s I love you in this.” But the 90%’s we received on the projects were not what stuck out in my brain most. It was our self love and our growth that we found through that project that made it memorable. This is when I started loving my hair, when I figured out I could look good in pictures and that I could take myself a little seriously sometimes. We had become so comfortable with ourselves and with each other that it was not uncomfortable or forced to pose and step out of our comfort zones. This was the moment I knew we were growing up together.
And I am so proud of us for that. If we had not been by each others sides through out all the preteen dramatic heart breaks, the awkward experiments of hairstyles and the coming of age moment when you realize that neon just isn’t your colour, I am certain I would be lost in the world with no expression of who I am or what I stand for. I would not be confident with myself and I would have no idea where to find my path. And for that I thank you. I mean look at us. We are two strong, smart, beautiful young women who are getting our education and supporting each other through it. We are discovering who we are when we are apart from each other but when we get together it was like we never left high school. It sometimes hard to describe how amazing I find our friendship, because the relationship itself exceeds all words. All I know is that I don’t know what I would do without you.
Something that stuck out in my mind during our joint graduation party was something that your grandmother had said to me. She said that she had had a dear friendship like ours once but because of the lack of communication technologies and the fact that they were moving away from each other left them out of contact and they never spoke again, she never saw her best friend in the whole world again. Ours will not be like that. I’m not letting ours be like that. That is why I’m writing this. I’m writing this for the legacy of our best friendship and all other best friendships that the world has ever seen. This is for the women who haven’t seen their best friend in years, for those who see their best friend every day and for those who are still looking for their best friend. This is for the best friends that live oceans, or hours or minutes away, for the ones who’s favourite food is peanut but don’t eat it because their best friends are allergic. This is for the little girls on their first day of kindergarten, or university, or their careers, who are searching every women’s face wondering who their best friend will be. But most of all, my very best friend, this is for you. Thank you for being there then, now and forever.