Together, wherever we go

I am one of the lucky few who have a real, honest to goodness, capital letters required Best Friend. We met on the first day of school 9 years ago, and we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since.

It was my Best Friend who reassured me when I freaked out because I didn’t recognize the sound my car made driving on snow. It was my Best Friend whose room I wandered into sleepwalking, and who asked me what I was doing, to which I replied “Fine. How are you?” and wandered back out of the room. It was my Best Friend (and my Gay Husband) who sat me down to tell me I was ruining all their pictures with a fake closed-mouth smile. It was my Best Friend who introduced me to such delicacies as squeaky cheese curds, twice-baked potatoes, and a recipe her mother makes called “party chicken,” which consists of chicken wrapped in bacon sitting on a bed of beef.

She is my favorite shopping companion and my favorite travel companion, despite the fact that she always overpacks and has only a tenuous grasp on how to read a city map. We have traveled to England, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Bulgaria, and Italy together, and she has been present for almost every adventure I’ve had in my adult life. She has seen me through many ups and downs in my love life as well, and last summer she rearranged her cross-country move so that she could stand next to me at my wedding. She is the first person I tell my secrets and the first person I look to for reassurance that I’m okay. She is also the only person I know who can match my dessert consumption bite for bite.

We have shared our crushes, our successes, and enough blackmail material to last several lifetimes. Unfortunately, we haven’t shared a zip code in years.

Which is all to say, I miss you, Best Friend. For two people who claim to be inseparable, we’ve been doing this long distance thing for way too long.