Yet another new start comes around, bringing a chronic nostalgia to us, of every age we’ve ever been, and all the ages we’ll ever be. When we are young, we don’t know that things can be different, that we can choose who we devote our hours to. The most valuable piece of advice I have— is that if we ever make a promise in the new year; make the promise to devote your energy, time and love to your friends and family. This is to my best friend.
My best friend has become a part of me. The parts of myself that I love with all my heart, the one impossible to find flaws in. Find someone who is the part of you that you can fall into so easily, with all the bits you hate cut out. You don’t have to explain anything to them, because they always know what you’re thinking, even before you do.
I feel an aura of admiration and awe around this friend, where the time spent is so full and so good, and so necessary. You’re always slightly scared of them, but always in unnerving admiration, that you know people like this exist, and that living proof is standing in front of you. You constantly wonder how they keep their faith, live their lives like they do, keep that charisma, and be an effortlessly good person. You realise a friendship doesn’t always need to be simple with them, and the more undefinable it is, the more meaning it has. They are what you need as the fuel to want to be sharper and more terrifying, a better human. How lucky we have been, to have realised what feeds our souls.
Loving this friend is like therapy. Coming home to a part of yourself that you never knew even existed. ‘Okay fine,’ they say, ‘pack up and move because new is always better Tash.’ My friend tells me that I have to try, that something is going to keep me alive and that I should pull my hair out searching for it. Your ‘do whatever you must’ friend. The cardigan I slip on when I’m cold. The one who you always share new things with, wherein an infinite number of universes; you could’ve met, or maybe have never met. But it’s always felt like you’re meant to know them. That friend that makes your life feel like a Hozier, or Bon Iver song; who doesn’t like your singing but stays quiet because they know you like to sing anyway.
I am so enthralled by this friend, who has built me a whole world to protect me from all that I fear. You can lean against their doorway, comfortable in any place that belongs to them. And you can be you. Be mindful when you get lost in their inside jokes, the crazy things you do together, the tiny things you hyper-fixate on that you know only the both of you would notice, the confused looks from others as they try to understand just how close we are. Always keep that friend that knows you, knows you read John Green before you fall asleep, never want to light candles because you’d rather keep them, one who understands that glint in your eye when you’re planning something that you want to keep a mystery. Who will go with you at the peak of dawn to watch the tide return back to the sea because they know how much you love it?
When you stare at this person, it’s like staring right back at your reflection. You can pick strawberries off the ground that still have dirt on them and eat them together, force feed each other food when you know they need it, stand on their sturdy hands as you look out your loft window to take a picture of the sunset—where you know they’ll never let you fall. You know that no one else could make you feel safer, more seen; the best kind of people are the ones who enable you to be your genuine self. Someone who feels like home, who knows you’ve run out of space on your bookshelves, but buys you another anyway. Where they, holding up everything, would never ask me to give up anything.
I know who I’m writing this for. Whether you have found this friend or not— I’ll hope we all find one, or become that friend for someone, someday, because it is the best thing you could ever have.