Dear Best Friends,
Before I found you, I was pretty unlucky in the friendship department (with the exception of one person). All of the people I’ve considered to be my “best friends” in the past either slowly drifted away or turned out to be extremely toxic, constantly manipulating me mentally and emotionally. Because this toxicity and loss was all I was exposed to for the majority of my life, I never knew what true friendship was like until very recently— during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the world seemed to be crumbling all around us, my world changed forever. My friends were there for me like nobody has ever been before; I had never felt so much love and support in my entire life than I have in the past year. The friends I have now (aka you) were there for me when I needed you the most, and I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for all you’ve done for me.
True friendship, I’ve discovered, isn’t just the love and support I was recently exposed to. It’s the simple things like checking in to see how I’m doing, asking about things that are important to me, and congratulating me on my successes. I never knew that these are things that go both ways in a friendship. For the longest time, it felt like I was always putting forth effort and never getting anything in return.
Friendships don’t go one way; they’ve got to come from both sides. Everything always seemed like a competition in my prior friendships, and no matter how much I supported them and wanted our friendship to work, I was somehow always left alone and friendless. Both people in a friendship have to be willing to put in effort to make the bond last, and it wasn’t until now that I realized just how true that is. You need to love and want to be there for one another in order for your friendship, and really any relationship, to last.
With the people I now have in my life that I consider to be my greatest friends (and my built-in best friend for life I’ve always had), I know they’re going to be there for me for the rest of this ride. They’re going to be the ones that help me when I fall and cheer the loudest when I succeed. They’ll be the ones who protect me endlessly (even when I say I can take care of myself) and the ones that will stand up with me at the altar on my wedding day, crying and laughing because I finally found a man who can keep up. I’m sorry to say that you’re stuck with me forever now; you guys are my best friends for life. I will forever be grateful for the friendships we have, and just like you’ve always been there for me, I’ll be there for you too.
Thank you for choosing me to be your friend. I love you guys endlessly.
Love,
Me