You always hated saying best friend because you thought those words were cursed–that any time a person was dubbed that, the relationship would end badly. I used to think that was ridiculous.
My life changed when I met you. We were going into our freshman year of college and the world was ours. We had dreams–big dreams–and we were determined to create a wondrous adventure for ourselves in this thing called life. The world was full of possibilities, and we wanted to seize each and every one of them.
You were my first roommate, and I was terrified of you being one of the dreadful sorts, but we just…clicked…and you blew every hope and expectation I could have had for a roommate. You set the standard impossibly high for any others to follow.
We immediately established that we would have an open door policy in our room–that people were welcome to talk, drink coffee (you drank an obscenely unhealthy amount), study, vent, and hang out any time. You would study with people quietly in our room well into the wee hours of the morning as I slept, but it never bothered me. We were the room that had movie nights every weekend, that created a family of sorts with family dinners every night, that built forts together (yes, we were never afraid to let our inner child come out) and had Harry Potter marathons during our week snow-in/school cancelations everyone from high school promised we would never have. Heck, we had people come up to our room and just lay on the floor and nap because we were the room that aspired to be a home away from home of sorts–for everyone. And as hectic as it was at times, I loved every single second.
You encouraged me, challenged me, laughed with me, cried with me, and pushed me to be the very best friend that I could be. You made me coffee when we had long days/nights of studying ahead, brought me chocolate when I needed a pick me up, left notes to encourage me on my big test days, and always ALWAYS let me steal your Gilmore Girl DVD’s without complaining. You taught me the value of confrontation, no matter how difficult, and taught me how to face what I wanted to run from. You would call me out on my crap, and I would call you out on yours, but we knew that each were doing it out of love. You weren’t afraid of telling me the things I didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear. I learned so many lessons from you, and I’m so grateful for each and every one. I don’t have a sister, but you made me feel like I did. Somehow, you made space in your heart to love this crazy weird person that is me….and you matched the craziness and weirdness. And for all of these things, I will be forever grateful.
I know we both hurt each other pretty badly. And for my part, I am so sorry and wish that I would have known and could have changed it. It still hurts sometimes to think about all we had and all we lost, but we are different people now and I think I grieve the loss of what we used to be. I want you to know that I am sorry. I also want you know that I forgive you for your part in things. That is still a challenging thing for me to confront, but I work towards that–forgiveness. While simple in concept, it’s much harder in practice. I also hope that one day, you might be able to forgive me too.
It is sad to know that you cross my mind often, though I probably rarely cross yours anymore. It hurts to know that you won’t be there standing with me at my wedding someday, and that I won’t be at yours. I hate that I can’t call you up and tell you all the exciting things that are happening in my life, and that I won’t get that call from you. I’m sorry that you thought I “wouldn’t care if you left”. But I want you to know that I did care. It broke my heart to lose my best friend.
I hope you are doing well. I hope that life gives you all that you dream of. I hope you can think of me and be able to smile from the good times and that the bad times don’t drown out all the good. If you ever come across this, know that I love you, I am sorry, and I am always here if you change your mind. I hope that our paths someday cross again, but even if they don’t, I hope that you are chasing your dreams with every ounce of passion you had, and that you are happy beyond measure.
No matter what, I want you to know that I will forever cherish the memories, continue to grow from the lessons, feel grateful for the time I got to call you my best friend, that I forgive you, that I am so sorry for the way things ended, but that I wouldn’t trade our memories for the world. I hope that your life becomes all you had ever dreamed, and I hope that someday, you too might wish the same for me.
All my love forever,
-Mac
Without Borders 