Letter to My Best Friend

Dear best friend,

As an adult, the words “best friend” don’t quite roll off the tongue LOL. It seems sort of juvenile to have to reference someone as such, but even when I was younger, I have never introduced anyone as “my best friend, so and so,” even though they usually introduced me that way. I guess I’ve never cared much for labels. If I don’t call you my best friend, does it make you any less so? Of course not. But more so than that, as an adult, I have found that as I grew as a person, I found common threads with other close friends, which made them also invaluable to me. So I don’t have a best friend – I have a small circle of friends, each of whom have something different to offer, and who each take different pieces from me. I find the term “best friend” kind of off-putting, personally. It always sounds so territorial. People who use it tend to wield it like it makes them a better friend than you, or like they just wanna “let you know” that they are the priority in the friend’s life, NOT YOU!!! (so there, LOL)

I just think its stupid.

But to my small circle of girlfriends who all serve individual purposes in my life and are teathered to specific aspects of the drama in my life, I love you, and I cannot imagine what my life would be like had I not had you in it. To the ones who know something is going on but never ask, waiting for me to bring it to the table, thank you for respecting my space and privacy. To the ones who know something is going on and ask me directly what it is, knowing I probably will never bring it to the table on my own, thank you for forcing me to live outside of myself and see how my personal shit affects others, even when I dont mean for it to, or realize that it does. To those who have shown up at my house with a bottle and a box, and just sat with me saying nothing at all, thank you. To those who have read a distressed FB status or blog and offered words of encouragement, just so I never forgot that 350 miles is still only a text message away, thank you. To those who have laughed with me, cried with me, plotted and schemed with me, taken up for me and valued my presence in your lives as much as I have valued yours in mine, thank you.

I am so proud of the directions all of you are going, even when I dont necessarily agree with the path you choose to get there. I respect the conscious decisions you make to be happy, even when it causes you to tell me little white lies. I love your desire to be your own people, even when I find you to be delusional in the process. Direction, conscious decisions and desire are all I ever want for you. Find it by any means necessary. Happiness awaits at the end of the road.

I only hope that I have been as good a friend to you all as I like to believe I have. I hope I have been there for you in times of need, listened when you didnt really want to do anything other than vent, and given you advice unbiased by my own beliefs when asked. Please know that I will always be here for you. When you feel like there is no one you can call on, that's the time when you should call me. Oh.... and I hope you know that whenever my words were harsh, it was purely out of love and not wanting to see you short yourselves of the things that you deserve. I can only hope that you all are as honest with me, even when its not what I want to hear. Again, I love you, and there will never be a time that Im not here for you, even when what I really wanna do is spin you in bubble wrap and hang you out a window by your ankles LOL.

Thank you for putting up with my shit.

Forever, Dig.