To my best friend

I’m going to write this out here, not because you are likely to ever see this (almost certainly you’ll never see this). I know you stumble around these sites (not necessarily this one). Instead, I’m writing this because this is all a little cathartic for me. It’s kind of my own therapy for coping, to stumble around these sites.

In the few years that we have known each other, you have become my best friend, and I have become yours. You know this because we walked and talked a few days ago, watched the sunset in the park and refound each other. At least I refound you. It is all so strange and unexpected. How we came into each other’s lives. How easily that might never have happened. Though we’d crossed paths many years ago and had never known it.

You are the most amazing, courageous girl I’ve ever known. You’ve walked the razor’s edge too many times to count. I know you’ve been fighting the demon for more than ten years and that it doesn’t get better. It never changes. The revolving hospital doors since you were a teen haven’t done a thing either. It’s an endless mudslide punctuated by the occasional halts.

I’m just going to say it here, again, I’m never letting go. I am here for life, if that’s a week, a year, fifty years. I was glad to hold your hand in the hospital. I was glad to hold you when you were a puddle in the middle of your bedroom floor or up on that mountain. And if it comes to that, just as I promised you, I will take you out dancing or whatever, then walk you to the end of the bridge. I regret nothing. But you know this too.

Love you to death, baby girl.