My Best Friend Saved Me

Dear Irene,

Over a decade of friendship and it still feels like we met just yesterday. Even though we have different accounts of the day we met, the fact is that was the day I met my first real friend.

We were both high school freshmen, starting a new school. In my case, I considered it starting a new life. I didn’t know who I was or who I wanted to be. On the outside, you saw a cold-hearted person with a bad attitude that wouldn’t put in the effort for conversation. Inside it was the opposite…

Back then, my inability to speak was my fear of others finding out the truth. The truth was inside were broken pieces I couldn’t place together myself. Alone and in need of help, the words were stuck in my head, yet they would never leave my lips.

Finding my voice was a struggle. Every day I played out our future conversations in my head and wondered to myself if it would just lead to rejection.

And then you said, “I like your bag.” Do you know how much those words changed my life?

Those words were so simple, yet they were difficult for you. I realized then we were the same.

You know me though; my mind is always stuck in the past. Replaying old memories. Slowly wanting to share everything with you. Back then there was always something I couldn’t say.

My mind was set on dying young. At eleven, I kept a journal of all the possible ways I could go. Down to the detail, everything was planned. All possible scenarios written, with optimal conditions and since I never had a true friend each day inched closer to becoming reality.

When I showed you my subpar poems of contrasting love and suicide, could you tell how broken I was?

Each word we spoke to one another made it easier to breathe. Each new experience you shared opened my eyes a tiny bit more. With each laugh the weight of my thoughts slowly lifted.

In the last thirteen years of our friendship, until now, I’ve never told you the simple compliment you gave the day we met saved my life. I could attempt to give you the world and never repay that debt.

Now, enough about me. Let me tell you the reasons why because of you, I decided to continue living.

You aren’t perfect. You disappear for days at a time. Fan-girl over the worst boy bands. Your obsessive personality is enough for the normies to have you committed. Despite your cringy past times, I would never change that about you.

When I come to you for advice, you’ve never given your opinion regardless of how questionable the situation is. Your neutral stance and inability to give me the answers have always forced me to consider my feelings ending with changing my opinion even though my logic was perfect.

I know you never feel worth it or enough. Truth is you are worth more than what the world has to offer and every day you are in my life is a gift I keep receiving. You are more than just my best friend. You’re the sister I never had, the complement to all my faults. You’re the only person to never judge or give up on me, even when I’ve lost hope for myself. You’ve shown me kindness and love that I never thought I deserved. Since the first time I’ve considered you my friend, you’ve given me the strength to live another day. Although you aren’t always there when I want you to be, you’re there when I need you. For that, I couldn’t ask for anything else.

I’ve never been one for openly expressing my feelings, mostly since I’ve never been sure of how I feel most of the time. With you, I am sure. I love you, with all that I am and everything I can be. I look forward to the future because no matter distance or time that separate us, I know that I’ll always have you.