Having a best friend has been one of the best things that
has ever happened to me. Little did I
know that there apparently are people in this world that might not be blood
relatives but are actually family. I
have a couple of people in my life who qualify as family in my book, and one
person (other than my husband) who qualifies as my best friend. I love her like my sister, and we complement
each other in every way. We are so alike
in so many ways but are opposites in all of the right ways. I truly believe that she is my
best-friend-soul-mate, if that is even a thing.
Onlookers don’t understand what we have and that’s ok, they don’t have
to. This is our relationship, it’s our
thing.
We have this relationship where if she calls me upset, I am
on my way to her house before she even gets three words out. As soon as I hear the panic, pain, or stress
in her voice nothing else matters and I just go. It’s instinctual. I even saved her life this way once because
what she thought was a panic attack was actually her body starting to go into
anaphylaxis from an allergic reaction.
We just know each other. We can
sense when things are wrong. She does
the same thing for me and will come at a moment’s notice if something horrible
is happening. We have this give and take
co-dependency and we both know when to ask questions and talk it out, and when
to just show up and be silent.
When she is excited about something I celebrate with her. Imagine teenage girly squeals on each side of
the phone. That is us to a T. We both know how hard the other one works for
things and we both know each other’s struggles.
When one of us has succeeded, we both have succeeded because we both put
in the blood, sweat, and tears to get there.
When we moved she spent weeks helping me pack my house, when she was
stressed I cleaned her whole house. We grocery
shop together, we talk every day. We
cheer each other on both in person and from afar. I don’t need to compete with her, I don’t
feel insecure when she succeeds I just feel joy and pride.
The same goes when she is upset or hurt. I have laid awake at night sobbing because of
things she has gone through. And I know
she cries with and for me, as well. When she is broken, so am I. When something happens to her, it is as if it
is happening to me. There have been
times when my heart is so heavy and I feel so helpless because all I want to do
is fix something but I can’t. And I know
that when I have been broken or hit hard times she is exactly the same
way. I ache when she is in pain.
We both also get very protective over each other. If someone hurts me she goes on a warpath,
and I am the same way. This is ironic because
neither of us like confrontation, but both of us would fight to the death for
each other. When I forgive someone who
has hurt me, it takes her longer to forgive that person and the same goes for
me. When I know someone has hurt her, or
taken advantage of her, or has even just not been nice to her I want
revenge. I have a fierce desire to
protect her and make sur that she never feels that way again. She is exactly the same way. Sometimes I giggle when she tells me how mad
she is about something that I have already let go, but it’s comforting to know
that someone has my back. And that I
have hers.
For years we have told each other everything about our families,
our childhoods, our marriages, our children.
For years we have held each other’s secrets, hopes,
fears, and insecurities. There’s no judgment here. There’s no condemnation. Sometimes we ask for advice, sometimes we get
unwanted advice, sometimes we just get a listening ear. But we both keep coming back because she is
one of the only people in my life that I trust fully. She is one of the only people in my life who
truly loves me unconditionally and I love her just as unconditionally.
I literally pray that someday my daughters find a friendship
like ours. As a mom I know that I will
always be close with my kids and that nobody can take that away. I hope and pray that they find a best friend
who will love them unconditionally, who will cry with them, laugh with them,
celebrate with them, scold them, help them, keep their secrets, and fight for them.
My mom’s heartbeat in women’s ministry before she passed
away was to help women find authentic relationships with each other. She help found “knitted hearts” groups where
these women could seek such relationships and nurture them. This is exactly what I have with my best
friend. Our hearts are truly knitted
together and my mom would be so happy we have each other. My mom would love her because I do, my mom
would pursue a relationship with her because she is so important to me. And my mom would encourage our genuine
friendship. I deeply wish that my mom
had met her, but I am so grateful God sent her to me when He did. I found her not long after my mom died. I was in a bad place and felt so very alone
and my best friend just landed in my life almost by chance and it has been one
of the best things to ever happen to me.
I could never imagine life without her, and I don’t want to.
