To the girl I once called my best friend.

Just the other day I was at work talking to some coworkers and I told a story about you.

“So my best friend…” I started.

And in a split second, I hesitated. Just momentarily. Not long enough for it to be noticeable, not long enough to disrupt my story. I told my story. Everyone laughed. I sat down. I began to work again.

But in that moment I realized that I was lying. To them and to myself. You are not my best friend. And truth be told, you haven’t been in years.

As I continued on with my day, my heart ached. I kept thinking about all the hours we spent talking, all the growing up we did together, all the times we swore we would be best friends forever. I wanted to cry for 9 year old Maren who thought she had found the most amazing person in the world. Well, I had found the most amazing person in the world. But I wanted to cry for all the ways the friendship we had built couldn’t last.

We held on for quite some time. Not many 12 year olds refuse to give up on a friendship like we did. We put up with months of only being allowed to talk for 5 minutes a day on weekdays and then for as many hours as we wanted on weekends and nights. We dragged our parents to the stores to buy each other Christmas gifts (which I always sent late). We only painted our nails over the phone together, because it was tradition. We wrote a few ridiculously long letters. We sent pictures. When we were finally old enough for email, we emailed. When we finally had phones, we texted. When we weren’t able to talk for a few days or weeks, we made up for it in 9 hour phone calls. We persisted.

And then what?

And then we grew up. We grew into talents that were separate from one another. We grew into a girl who lived here, and a girl who lived there. We grew into ourselves, and away from each other.

A few years ago, I sat across from you at a table and we painted our nails in preparation for your wedding. It was like nothing was different, except that everything was. We had lived whole lives apart from each other. You had met the man of your dreams, and I didn’t even know him yet. A few days later, I would return home to a world where people would ask how your wedding was, and they would ask how I knew you. In some ways we couldn’t be more separated. In some ways, there’s no tie to each other at all.

But in a larger way, a quieter, softer, more comforting way, there is a tie between us that won’t break, no matter how long we live.

Because you were my first real best friend, the first person I loved that much outside of my family. You were my first heartache. The moment I learned you were moving was the first moment my heart had ever broken. And you were the girl I called after every heartbreak after that. You were that voice of logic who told me when I was being too emotional, too dramatic, too immature. You laughed at my dumb jokes, and not just pity laughs, for years. You were the first person I shared something I had written with. You introduced me to Harry Potter. You sat by me through hours and hours of practicing painting my nails. You were my first real best friend.

So here I am, days after telling this story, and my heart still aches in the type of way that tells me that you are lacking from my life, but that’s okay. Because for all the years of heartache, all the hours of listening to each other cry, all the conversations where we worried that we would never get what we wanted out of life… all of this has finally resulted in where we are now. And I am content with missing being in it. I am content, because you were the first person who I had ever loved above myself, and I am so happy that you are happy.

So here’s to the nights we stayed up laughing and hoping your mom wouldn’t hear. To all of the sugar cookies and pizza we ate. To all of the dumb shows we obsessed over. The things we thought were hilarious that no one else laughed at. The hours and hours spent on the phone, with hardly any silence. To the girls we were and to the women we grew up to be.

In fourth grade, I walked into a room where none of my friends were. I had cried all morning because I didn’t know who I was going to sit by. And then there you were, the weird girl I didn’t really know who liked dinosaurs a lot, smiling at me. I came and sat with you, and the rest is history.

The truth is, you are no longer my best friend. I am no longer yours. We haven’t been for a while.

But you are part of my heart forever. I think this way is a little better.