Dear Friendship

You surprised me.

I thought that when I found you, you’d be indestructible. I never thought you wouldn’t last, but in the last few years you fell apart. Sometimes it was graceful, most time it was in ways that I could not understand. I didn’t understand why you left me in moments that I thought we would bring us closer — that we could enjoy together. After some of my life’s biggest milestones, you drifted away and I felt like you didn’t understand me anymore, and I didn’t understand you.

I questioned how you showed up and couldn’t understand why what was important to me, wasn’t important to you. I hated that when life got beautiful, you got challenging. When I got baptized, you changed, when I got married you changed. I wasn’t sure why you didn’t just love these new versions of me and why what used to be so easy, became so difficult. I cried so much over you. I cried because never in a million years did I think we wouldn’t last, and I hated that no part of me was ever prepared for it.

And as you unraveled, you made me feel insecure. Like I couldn’t maintain relationships or that I was the common denominator of trouble. I feared what people would think when they knew we parted ways.

You brought me so much pain, yet you were so hard to let go. I can think of so many times that I wanted to hold on when I felt like you needed me, too, but every time just felt like a delay of the inevitable.

But after such a tough season, you became the cupid of my adulthood—helping me find deep, unique love that feels so effortless and undeserving. You emerged from coffee shops and in ways I would’ve never seen coming. And I was wrong when I thought you didn’t know me. In fact, sometimes I feel like you know me better than I know myself. Meeting needs that I didn’t even know needed to be met. You’ve showed me breakthrough in spaces I couldn’t transform myself. You’ve brought me new opportunities, perspectives, and hope that there’s more. You’ve compounded. And most importantly, you’ve brought me closer to God.

So, I write to you with an overflowing heart. You’ve filled my cup, and you’ve blessed my home. You’ve laughed with me and cried with me. You grew with me, and you healed me. And I love the ways you’re always so eager to leave me with nothing but the best, even if it hurts.

Friendship, you surprised me.

I can’t wait for all the new memories we’ll make together and I’m grateful you love me the way that you do.

I don’t know where I’d be without you.

xoxo,

Leticia