A Love Letter To My Best Friends

When I was in Middle School I spent the majority of my time alone. I would go straight home from school everyday and sit around the house, watch movies with my mom, take long walks with my dog, and eat dinner outside with my brothers. It was nice, life was good, but I didn’t really have any friends.

Emily Fisher changed all of this. We had met in Junior High but our conversations were limited to our favorite TV shows, and what the math homework was. Quite honestly, she is one of those people I don’t actually remembering becoming friends with. It just happened, we became inseprable immidetley. We bonded over windy drives up into the mountains and by laying in the cool green fields as we listened to Brenton Wood, Queen, and Elton John. We went to Kauai together and dove into crystal blue water and smothered ourselves in red clay from the waterfalls. We always danced too much, and sang to loud, and wasted all of our money on $6 shirts from Goodwill and cake mix from the store that was only a bike ride away from my house. She is by far the smartest girl I have ever met in not in the “copy all of her homework” kind of way (although everyone copied all of her homework) but she is genuinely smart, and she wants to learn. I can ask her anything about anything and she’ll know it, if she doesn’t she’ll learn it. She practices her violin in her pink room filled with scattered music sheets, every harry potter book, porcelain angels, and an abundance of scrunchies. She would tutor me on the carpeted floor of her room and I would have to hold back my laughter as she scribbled something down on her whiteboard, she would try to teach me things we both knew I couldn’t understand but we would laugh about it and end up playing music and watching TV instead. She spent the summer going into Junior year learning how to code in New York City. I spent a week with her there, we would sit on the subway until all the sweat had exited our bodies, we would walk around and pretend we were old enough to live on our own, and we would plan our future’s so that we would spend our lives in the city together. We danced in the kitchen and ate smores on the ground that we had made in the microwave. Emily is going to rule the world one day, I am sure of it.

I met Mia Barton in the 6th grade, I remember being in awe of her impressive volleyball skills, silky blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and skin blanketed in sweet freckles. Mia and I didn’t become good friends until Freshman year, and i accredit a lot of who I am to our friendship. I think Mia and I really grew into ourselves when we became friends. She lights up any room she walks into, her booming laugh can be heard a mile away and heads always turn at the clothes she customizes herself. Mia makes me so proud to be a woman, she makes me so proud to be her friend. We would climb up on the hill near her house and swing on the rope that dangled of an old Eucalyptus tree. We would swim in the ocean when the only light was the moon and we would blast music so loudly in the apartment attached to her house that it felt like the ground was shaking. I remember listening to Amy Winehouse for hours while we laid on the bed and then we raced to the ocean to swim to the buoys. We turned her bathtub pink with cheap hair dye we bought from CVS and we would laugh until our eyes watered and our stomachs hurt. We would dream of the day where we would start our own school with her sister and her friend, we wanted to see change, we wanted to be change. Mia was my first friend to get her driver’s licence, she would pile up in her car and drive us to thrift stores and parks where we would set up our hammocks, blow bubbles, and cover our bodies in fake tattoos and glitter. She would always let me take photos of her when I got my first film camera, we would draw and paint together, and ditch class because we prefered laying in the sun.

Maesyn Fitzgibbons is angelic with her emerald green eyes and soft brown skin. Maesyn and I didn’t become good friends until Sophomore year where we bonded at the tables outside of the classrooms, it took me awhile to recognize that she is quite possibly the funniest person I have ever met, who is driven beyond belief, and who has a heart of gold. What drove us to become even closer was our shared hatred for specific noises and our tendency to be sent into a panic attack which is induced by the sound of people chewing with their mouth open or even just breathing too fucking loudly. We went to Oregon and danced in thrift shops to shitty Dj’s, we went to a “hot springs,” only to find a jacuzzi filled with people 20 years older than us with about 50% more body hair than the average human. We always looked forward to passing periods where we would stand in the sun and warm up our icy hearts so that we wouldn’t try to get our Economics teacher fired for irritating us that morning. Maesyn gets me in a way no one else has before, not only from our fear of mouth breathers and loud chewers but from our sense of humor and our need for vitamin D. Maesyn has taught me to give less shits, laugh a lot more, and to always appreciate the sun.

Eileen Andersen is hard to describe, she has been one of my best friends for almost two years but I am still baffled by the things that come out of her mouth and how her brain works. I started writing down all the things that she said that made my eyes water from laughing. She is the kind of girl who defends milk, who respects a good set of Jugs, and who is never ashamed to speak her mind. Eileen has reminded me to not take myself too seriously. She is also one of the most caring people I have ever met, she would tuck me into bed and read me a bedtime story if I told her that’s what I needed. She is always spoiling her friends and driving too fast on the freeway and mispronouncing song lyrics. She makes me laugh like no one else and she doesn’t mind when I fall asleep in the movie theater. Eileen and I would dance on top of empty parking garages and swim in green pools hidden in the mountains. She is always ready to get icecream with me, and I know she would do anything for her friends. In the summer she goes to Montana to tune into her inner mountain man, she always brings us home huckleberry taffy. Eileen and I are always on the same page and she has shown me how much an amazing friend can change your life.

I love my friends more than anything. I know we will eat too many sweets, dance until our feet hurt, and swim in the ocean until our eyes sting for many more years to come.