To My Best Friend on Her Birthday

Dear Megan,

It’s weird calling someone your best friend as an adult, especially one that you see way less than you should. It’s even weirder when the majority of your friendship was spent with each of you on opposite sides of the country. But if there is one person outside of my family that I feel closest with, it’s you.

Though I may not have known you as long as some of my other friends, you have remained one of my closest friends, regardless of the distance between us or whatever else is going on in our lives. We became friends pretty quickly, and that friendship grew into a closer one, and we have managed to remain friends for over 16 years.  

If that time frame makes you feel old, it does on my end as well. But let’s take a look back over those 16+ years, shall we? This date held special significance to a teenage me 16 years ago. As you are well aware, around these parts, a lot of teenagers are not allowed to “date” until the age of sixteen, as it is part of the LDS faith. I didn’t have to worry about that back in the day, as girls were not really something I was terribly interested in as a teenager. Sure, I crushed a lot, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year of high school that I thought maybe it would be neat to have a girlfriend, if only because that’s what some of my friends were doing at the time.

I developed one of those aforementioned crushes on a girl from one of the other junior highs, and I was patiently awaiting her 16th birthday to “ask her out,” assuming that she, like 85% of the rest of the people in my school, subscribed to the dominant religion of the area. February 25th was mentally circled in my head as the magic date, and I might have even been cooking up some elaborate plan, until you ended up with a boyfriend prior to that date. I probably had my little teenage heart broken, but I got over it and moved on to the next crush, the next girl that I wouldn’t have the courage to actually do anything about.

Nevertheless, you and I remained close. I was “friend-zoned” long before that was really a thing, but in the long run, it ultimately worked out. There is a reason why you are the only one of my high school friends — other than the kids from the cul-de-sac — that I keep in contact with. You have been there for me, even remotely, whenever I have needed you, and even though I don’t talk or see you as often as I’d like, we can still “hang out” without skipping a beat. I’m sure that loosely keeping tabs through social media is a help, but we just continue to click as friends regardless.

There was a time a long time ago that I regretted not really pursuing you romantically, wondering what that relationship would have been like. But I quickly came to the realization that it wasn’t meant to be like that I would not trade our friendship for anything, and I am glad that you are in my life.

So as you get another year older, please know that you will always have a special place in my heart. I love you as much as a friend can, and I hope that we will remain friends for as long as we can. You are a wonderful friend, an awesome mother to Maggie, and a great wife to your husband. I hope this year and every one after it is full of love and successes.

With all my heart,
Robert