I don’t think I talk about her enough. About how much she actually means to me and how much of my life she’s become over the last few years. People always focus on romantic relationships like those are the deepest connections you’ll ever have, but honestly one of the realest relationships in my life is my friendship with her. That’s my person. The first person I wanna call when something happens. The first person I wanna sit next to when life starts feeling too heavy. The person I wanna be around when I’m happy, when I’m sad, when I’m overwhelmed, when I’m overthinking, when I’m healing, when I’m spiraling. She’s just become part of my everyday life in a way that feels natural.

We’ve known each other since high school, but the closeness we have now didn’t happen overnight. It happened through life. Through heartbreak. Through becoming moms. Through divorce. Through nights sitting in cars talking for hours. Through venting about men. Through crying. Through laughing at ourselves. Through watching each other hit low points and still staying. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, we became family to each other. My kids adore her. Her daughter means a lot to me. Our lives became intertwined in a way that’s deeper than just “best friends.”

She’s one of the only people that doesn’t emotionally drain me. I think that’s why I hold onto our friendship so tightly. I can spend hours with her and never feel exhausted after. Most people, especially lately, take so much out of me emotionally. Even people I care about. Even men I genuinely liked. It always starts feeling heavy eventually. Like there’s expectations. Pressure. Emotional maintenance. Something constantly needing attention. Something constantly needing to be fixed or reassured or balanced. With her, I don’t feel that. I don’t feel like I have to perform around her. I don’t feel like I have to explain myself a hundred times for her to understand me. She just gets it.

She tells me the truth too. That’s another thing I love about our friendship. We don’t just sit there enabling each other. We say what needs to be said even when it’s uncomfortable. We call each other out. We tell each other when we’re being dramatic, selfish, emotional, irrational, avoidant, whatever it is. But there’s never malice behind it. There’s understanding. There’s honesty without judgment. I trust her opinion because I know she actually sees me clearly.

I think that’s also why I get so emotional over feeling like I don’t have as much access to her time anymore sometimes. Even saying that sounds childish in my head because logically I know how life works. I know people get into relationships. I know you can’t expect your best friend to only revolve around you forever. I know she has to split her time and energy now. I know she has to consider somebody else’s feelings too. I know all of that. Trust me, I do. But emotionally? Sometimes the selfish part of me is still like damn… she was my person first.

That’s the part I don’t think people understand unless they’ve had a friendship this deep before. It’s not jealousy in a romantic sense. It’s attachment. It’s being so used to having somebody as your safe place that when life starts pulling them in another direction, even naturally, it still hurts a little. Even when you support it. Even when you’re trying your hardest to be understanding. Sometimes I catch myself getting irritated over things and then immediately feeling guilty because I know she deserves happiness too. I know her experiences are not mine.

That’s another thing too. I’ve already had the marriage. I’ve already done the whole building a life around somebody thing. I know what it feels like to pour everything into a relationship and slowly lose yourself inside of it. I know what it feels like carrying the emotional weight of a household, a marriage, children, responsibilities, expectations, all of it. She hasn’t experienced that yet the way I have, and I never want my experiences to make me project fear onto hers. I never want her to feel like she shouldn’t want companionship or love just because my experiences left me exhausted by it all.

Deep down I do want her to experience something healthy. I want her to experience love differently than I did. I want her to have softness and stability and companionship if that’s what she wants. Not everybody’s story is gonna end up looking like mine. I know that. I genuinely do know that.

Selfishly though? Yeah. Sometimes I want her to myself. Sometimes I miss when it was just us figuring life out together without having to factor anybody else in. Without having to think about somebody else wanting her attention too. Without having to share time. I know how selfish that sounds. I know it’s unrealistic. I know she can’t only prioritize me forever. But feelings don’t always care about logic in the moment.

That’s honestly why I don’t want a relationship right now. I don’t want to split myself any more than I already have to. Between being a mom, trying to heal, trying to grow into a better version of myself, trying to maintain the relationships I already deeply care about, I don’t have the energy for another person needing pieces of me. I don’t wanna feel pulled in different directions anymore. Dating made me realize that really fast. Even when I liked somebody, there was still this underlying feeling of pressure sitting on me. Pressure to respond. Pressure to make time. Pressure to balance everything correctly. Pressure to consider somebody else emotionally all the time.

I don’t want that right now.

I want peace. I want freedom. I want my kids. I want my family. I want my best friend. I want the people in my life who feel easy to love instead of complicated to maintain.

Sometimes I know she probably feels pulled too. Pulled between wanting to be there for me and wanting to be present in her relationship. I know that can’t be easy either. That’s why I try to check myself sometimes. Because as much as I can sit here and say “I don’t care, I want her time,” the other part of me does care. The mature part of me understands she’s trying to balance both. Understands she’s trying to make everybody feel valued and loved at the same time. That’s not easy. Especially when emotions are involved on every side.

Still, I think what makes our friendship so important is that even through all these changes, all these emotions, all this honesty, we still choose each other every day. Nothing about our friendship feels fake or surface level. We’ve seen each other cry over people who didn’t deserve us. We’ve seen each other angry, depressed, insecure, emotionally exhausted, overwhelmed. We’ve vented about the same situations a hundred times. We’ve probably annoyed each other before too. But at the end of the day, she’s still one of the safest places I have in this life.

That means more to me than I think she’ll ever fully understand.