Dear Ex-Best-Friend

One day it will happen and you'll realize. When your eyes, so often shut or turned away, are opened to the truth of today. A truth that says, "Your life is what you make it. And you're making it with the people surrounding you now. And the others, your friends from before ... they're doing their own thing without you. And you them." The little voice of truth whispered this into my ear recently at the wedding of one of my closest friends. 

She and her husband were surrounded by friends from near and far on their wedding day, as many are. But what stood out to me was the significant presence of their friends from home - the hometown high school crew who turned out in droves to support their marriage and reaffirm a commitment to friendship. There I was, standing next to her on her wedding day as she vowed her life to another, a place I once thought I would stand for so many others. And it smacked me, as these things often do, and I realized that my life is different. And my people are different.

And that things just sometimes change.


My guy friends and gal pals from high school are truly gems - beautiful people with beautiful souls and I can't look back on those days without crediting them with so much of my happiness during those few short years. The best memories from those times are with people whose relationships didn't last the post-graduation frenzy. It's a strange phenomenon to lose the people who once helped you define what life was - back when it was Friday night football games, AP Biology tests, and prom dates. As the little train of life chugs on, we often lose the people who were once so very important to us and in doing so we lose a little part of ourselves, too. A part that once was made of pieces of them.

Back then, we made plans. With friendship bracelets and pinky promises to all be bridesmaids in each others' weddings... you just think you're going to be friends forever because how could life be any different? Those friends were all I'd ever known. You start to see how life happens and time happens and friendships slowly dissipate to nothingness because you move out and you move away and you move on. Sometimes you let it fall apart because of a silly fight or (likely more often) you both just stop putting in the effort because you're surrounded with the love and support of new and wonderful people. Sometimes nothing is broken, but you just drift apart. You check the "irreconcilable difference" box on the friendship-break-up sheet and you pack your stuff and you don't look back.

I don't think about it much. But more and more big life moments are happening in the lives of people I once-upon-a-time thought I could never live without. Engagements and marriages to people I've never met. Babies and cross-country moves. Thanks to a little creation called Facebook, I can actually watch you living a life without me in it. And I'm happy for you, I am so very very happy for you. But it's in these moments when I wonder what it would be like if we were celebrating together, as we had always planned. As opposed to reducing what we once held dear to liking a Facebook update or (if you're extra lucky) sending a quick text message. But then I get back to the everyday grind and hop on that little train taking me in the direction of my life.

To my once-friends, - those forever-in-my-heart people - this is to you. And the season of life we lived out together. And the future you've built for yourself. I'm sorry I wasn't there for the big stuff. I'm sorry I don't know your fiancé and his family or what your ring looks like in person. I'm sorry I don't know your baby's name and I'm sorry I didn't pick up the phone to call you and say congratulations. I'm sorry we both let the friendship we had just drift away. And since I'm likely to keep missing out, this message is for you - especially a girl I once knew who is now a woman - my once-best-friend-turned-stranger:

So much is happening, the future is exciting and big things are rumbling. I'm happy and I hope you are, too. I hope you meet the partner of your dreams (if that's what you want) and that you are living the life you imagined for yourself. I hope you find a way to absorb the joy in every day - with a career, with a family, with a dog, or with the mere sunshine on your face and the beauty that comes from being alive and well. I hope you are well, but we both know I have no idea how you are. 

I'm thankful for the time we shared. For the sleepovers and midnight phone calls. For the skinny dipping. For the hours of laughter and Dateline on Friday nights. For the after-prom parties and frozen pizzas. For introducing me to wonderful people and to awful people. For standing up to the Mean Girls when they picked on me. For taking the blame when I spilled red nail polish in Mom's new van on the 4th of July. For the dorm room dance parties. For not getting mad when I locked us out of your house in the rain. For being one of the five phone numbers I had memorized in middle school. For being my brother's confirmation sponsor. For bringing me chocolate when I was broken up with. For cutting up his t-shirt in the name of revenge. For learning to drive together. For being in the car when I backed up into a stop sign. For the Target runs. For the combined birthday parties at Joe's Crab Shack. For the birthday cupcakes from Schuler's and the handwritten cards. For the friendship love letters. 

So much of who I am is because of you.

I thought we were the life-long-forever kind of friends. We had plans to sit on front porches in rocking chairs and adopt all the dogs in the world who need love. We planned Maid-of-Honor speeches and imaginary bachelorette parties. We ran around our little town with the windows down and the music turned up because I didn't have air and you didn't care. We lived a good life, you and I. I would do it all again. Thank you for being you in all the little moments and especially in the big ones.

You knew me better than anyone, and I will never ever forget you. It would be the impossible task of forgetting part of myself.

I'm sorry if I wasn't as supportive as I should have been. I'm sorry something got in the way of whatever we had. I'm sorry I just didn't get who you wanted to become and that I have no idea who you are today. I wish you the best - in your career, in your personal life, and in whatever is important to you these days. I hope you have a life filled with everything you dream of. A long long time ago you planted a spark in me, a spark of independence and the determination to do whatever the hell you want. Thank you for that - for being the first to push me out of my comfort zone and into the world.  

I will always carry a little bit of sadness that somewhere along the way we lost each other. We let life hurl us in different directions and we don't share a single thing anymore. And I doubt you'll ever read this, but if you someday stumble upon it please know that I wish you happiness. I wish you love. I wish you the kind of friendship we always wanted but didn't have - the kind that lasts a lifetime. And though we will likely never see one another again, I will forever be thankful for the girl that you were and I will always love her.

xo,
S.

Say what you need to say.

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. 

I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."

Augustus Waters. 
The Fault in Our Stars (John Green)

I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things either, Augustus. And I think that's why when I read The Fault in Our Stars, this line blew up the page. My eyes skimmed it once, twice, ten times. How often do we deny ourselves the pleasure of saying true things in the name of fear? 

I am that person, you are that person. The one who fears rejection and uncertainty and imperfection. I continue to struggle in the battles of self-worth, accepting love from others, and presenting the truest and most authentic version of myself. But I fight the good fight every day. I don't win all the time - and neither will you. We are in this messy, muddy, one-day-at-a-time thing called life together. Putting yourself out there for the world to see, to judge, to nitpick and throw their nose up at - I am convinced it is the most difficult thing to do. But it is also the most rewarding.

We all live life with things unsaid. Actions we wish we would have taken. We all harbor alternate lives that have gone unlived because we chose to stay in the safe zone. There are regrets in life and we don't get take-backs or redos. You can't change what has (not) been done. But you can choose to be brave. You can choose to say the words that come to your mouth and are bursting from your seams. You know what I mean. The "don't do it", the "I'm so sorry", the "I love you".

I try to embrace straightforwardness. Saying the tough stuff. There's an uneasiness that bubbles in my stomach and a tightness that swells in my chest when something feels unresolved and there are words still left to thrust into the void of space and time and life between you and me. Putting your heart and soul out on the table - handing the pieces of you on a silver platter over to someone who could readily squash it with hammer in hand - GAH it's frightening. 

But there is a thriving that happens when telling someone: "You are wonderful." "You are beautiful." "You mean the world to me." "You are a good person." And even sometimes: "That really hurt me." "I can't do this." "Stop." I want to live my life with truth on my lips.

I wish I had some dramatic tale of love and loss or a moment of realization - the "Aha! I finally understand and my life is forever changed" kind of story to tell you. But that's not really the way it all works. You live your life, you have regrets, and with time you learn that life is just a bit more of something good without things left unsaid. Life is fuller, life is better when you let the words pour out. When you shut down those silly little voices in your head that lock up your heart. When you step into the light and claim your feelings. This life could all end tomorrow, with all the thoughts in my head and feelings in my heart hidden away from the people who put them there. But I won't let it happen like that. 

There's a freedom in unshackling yourself from the doubts and insecurities you harbor within your little world and sharing them with the people surrounding you. This is a call, a prompting, and challenge - to stay the tough stuff. To make the hard decisions. To embrace the challenge of putting your whole self out there for the someone else to see. Because it's big. And it's scary. And sometimes it can be down right weird to just let it out. We've been conditioned to live within the lines of what someone somewhere at some time deemed "appropriate" behavior. Where we run around in circles acting like we're fine when we're not. I say to hell with that. Screw perfect. I'd rather be brave and fly - fly with my highs and lows and honesty and truth and fullness. Sometimes it's going to hurt, that's just the way it goes. But I refuse to look back one more time and wish I had laid it all out and not walked away. 

There is something magical about letting people know you want them and need them and that they are special and important to you and that there's nothing more you want than to be with them in this very moment and for all of eternity. And sometimes it's grabbing a hand to hold. Or saying how you miss them so much it hurts. It's letting someone else know that you just want to hold them because being as close to them as humanly possible is in this moment the most magnificent thing in the world.

There is nothing more beautiful than being bold and being brave with your life. And there is nothing more hazardous to the human condition than masking your heart's desire. 

We will never know the magic that can stir between ourselves and other human beings without taking the leap. Mail the letter. Send the email. Say the words. It's really really scary, but so is a life of regret and all the words tossed aside in the name of fear. 

There is no time to waste, for time is precious and limited. We are finite, perishable items, and you might never feel ready. It's a disservice to yourself to believe you'll ever be ready or that a place exists where things such as perfect and prepared and finished exist at once. No one is ever ready to do much of anything, and if you wait until you are you'll be standing still forever. There is no such thing as ready, there is only now. So bring all your beautiful words to the surface, speak your truths, and choose to live out loud. Burst at the seams. 

Now.

Now.

Now.