A Letter to my Soul Sister

There’s this photo of us — we’re maybe three years old, sitting on a blanket in someone's backyard. Our cheeks are round, our hair wild, our mouths sticky with popsicle. We’re laughing about something that no longer matters. Matching dresses. Matching plastic sunglasses. We look like joy personified. It’s one of those snapshots of a time before life got complicated. Before we knew about heartbreak or mental illness or grief. Before we knew that friendship could be rare, and fragile, and worth holding onto with everything we have.

She’s been there since then. Since before memory, really. A part of my life so consistent she feels like a limb I grew up with — always attached, even if sometimes a little out of reach.

There have been so many versions of me since that photo. So many selves I tried on, wore down, buried, resurrected. But she’s stayed. Through every identity crisis, every emotional spiral, every time I tried to reinvent myself because I thought maybe then someone would finally stay.

She did.

She stayed through middle school, when I was awkward and unsure and always a little too much. She stayed through high school, when I started unraveling more noticeably — crying in bathroom stalls, flinching from hallway whispers, pretending I didn’t hear the names they called me. When I came home with tear-streaked eyeliner and silence heavy in my throat, she already knew. She never asked me to explain the pain, just passed me the ice cream and queued up whatever show we’d seen a thousand times. That was her way of saying you’re not alone — without making me feel like a burden.

She was there the first time I broke down in front of someone. Not just tears — I mean broke. Sobbing, shaking, not breathing right. I was terrified she’d look at me differently after that. But she didn’t flinch. She just sat next to me, knees touching, and stayed until I could feel the floor under me again.

There was the year everything felt like it was falling apart — family tension, toxic relationships, the first time I hurt myself and didn’t know how to talk about it. I remember lying on her floor in the dark, whispering, I don’t want to be here anymore. I waited for her to panic, to leave, to pull away like others had. But instead, she moved closer. Took my hand. Said, Then we’ll get through this. One breath at a time. And we did.

There have been sleepovers and car rides and sports teams and birthday parties. There have been inside jokes and tearful fights and the kind of laughter that makes your ribs hurt. There have been times when we grew apart — different schools, different phases, different people pulling us in different directions — but somehow, we always found our way back to each other.

We’ve sat at funerals together, dressed in black, hands tightly clasped. We’ve raged over breakups, dissected every text message from boys who didn’t deserve us, cried over the ones we thought we’d never get over. We’ve screamed along to sad songs in the car at 2 a.m. and then gotten fast food because grief makes you hungry, and healing doesn’t mean you stop craving comfort.

She’s seen me fall apart. She’s seen me stitched together with shaky hands and too much hope. She’s seen me manic and depressed, angry and numb, cynical and childlike. She’s seen me when I wanted to disappear, and she made sure I didn’t.

And the wildest thing? She’s never asked me to be anything other than who I am. She’s never made me feel like I had to earn her love. I never had to explain why I was crying again or why I couldn’t just “snap out of it.” She just… knew. Knows. Still knows.

Not everyone gets that kind of friend — the kind that spans decades and versions of self and still looks at you like you’re made of gold, even when you’re convinced you’re nothing but broken glass. The kind that doesn’t flinch at your darkness because she saw your light long before the world tried to dim it.

I don’t tell her enough. I should. I want to. That her love saved me. That her presence gave me something to hold onto when everything else felt like it was slipping away. That in a world where I’ve felt abandoned again and again, she’s my proof that not everyone leaves.

She’s the kind of love that doesn’t ask for performance.

She’s the kind of love that stays.

And if I ever forget who I am — or why I’m still here — I remember that someone like her loves me.

And that’s enough to keep going.

Maybe one day I’ll give her this letter, or maybe it will stay tucked in my drawer forever.

Dear You,

I don’t know if I’ll ever give you this. Maybe one day, maybe never. But there are things I need to say — things I’ve never known how to put into words without my voice cracking or my chest tightening.

You’ve always just been there. From the beginning. Since before I can remember. Since sticky popsicles and scraped knees and birthday party goody bags. I don’t think I ever realized how rare that was — to grow up alongside someone who never made me feel like I had to earn their love.

You’ve seen me at my worst. Not just messy or moody — I mean the worst. You’ve seen the nights I couldn’t hold it together, the times I shut down, the breakdowns, the numbness, the parts of me I was scared even to admit existed. You never looked away.

You stayed. That still gets me sometimes.

You stayed when I was quiet and when I was loud. When I was needy and when I was distant. When I spiraled, when I got cold, when I turned into someone I didn’t recognize. You didn’t try to fix me. You didn’t ask me to shrink. You just kept showing up, like that was the most natural thing in the world.

And maybe it was — for you.

But for me? That kind of love felt like a miracle.

There were moments — some dark, some quieter — where the only thing that kept me tethered was knowing you were in the world. That somewhere, even if we hadn’t talked in a while, you existed. You’d pick up the phone. You’d show up at my door. You’d sit on the floor with me and just let it be what it was.

You never asked for the “polished” version of me. Never made me feel like I was too much, or too broken, or too far gone. And you have no idea how rare that is. How much that saved me.

I think part of me still believes you know me better than anyone ever will — not because I told you everything, but because you were there for it. You saw it unfold in real time. You didn’t need the explanations. You just understood.

I hope I’ve shown up for you in even a fraction of the way you have for me. I hope you know I’m always here — always — even when I don’t say it, even when I go quiet. My love for you isn’t loud, but it’s steady. It’s bone deep.

You are proof that not all love has to be romantic to be soul deep. You are family — not by blood, but by choice. The kind of person you find once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky. And I am. I know I am.

So, thank you. For every little thing you probably thought I didn’t notice.
For every time you stayed when it would’ve been easier to walk away.
For loving me through every version of myself — even the ones I hated.

You remind me who I am when I forget.
You remind me that I’m never as alone as I feel.

I love you more than these words will ever hold.

— Me