**Author’s note: This is for my best friend and my true soulmate, the one who has shown me that sometimes people do stay even when so many others have chosen to leave.

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“You can always tell when two people are best friends, because they are having more fun than it makes sense for them to be having.” ~ Unknown

I know that soulmates are normally thought to be those romantic ones, but the truth is that it’s you who I can’t imagine living my life without. We may both have partners in life who complete us in different ways, but it’s in each other that we have found someone who is the sister that we’ve never had.

Because I know that when we find someone who can see us “ugly cry”— the kind where our voice catches in our throat, and our nose is red and runny—that we’ve found someone special.

You know when to just pick me up for a day out when life just gets to be too much, and you know the very thing to make me laugh, just at the moment when it seems like I never will again.

And never once do you ever tell me to “just get over it”—whatever it is—because you know me, and you know that this is how I feel everything, even if it’s different from you.

You believe in the practical, while I am a witch, and we laugh at the differences that exist between us, knowing that our friendship is stronger because of them.

I never expected to have a friendship that would withstand the test of time, but that is why now you are just so much more than a friend—you are family.

Not the kind of family we only see once a year and exchange shallow pleasantries with, but the kind of family we stick by in the trenches with, because their pain is our pain and their battles become ours.

I know that sometimes you must shake your head at the choices I’ve made, but never once did you not let me talk about a situation, even when it was on repeat for far longer than it should have been.

Most of all, you never let me forget what I truly deserve.

You understand my crazy family and the situations that I smile at just to have peace—but most of all, you are there with your silly text messages and memes reminding me to laugh at the craziness.

And I do—because it’s so much more fun laughing when I am with you.

Sometimes it seems that my stomach hurts whenever I leave you, because we simply find ourselves laughing until we have tears running down our high cheekbones and exuberant smiles.

It’s not because we really have to be doing anything special, because sometimes it seems that we find the most fun over disasters in the kitchen, while trying to make nachos or the escapades and hilarious inappropriateness of chocolate covered bananas.

Most of all, I love how I don’t have to be an adult around you. It doesn’t matter if I come over wearing a long black cape because we are watching “Twilight” for the umpteenth time, or if I build a chip sculpture in the dip—you simply laugh and join in the craziness.

I had thought all along that what I needed most was someone to be my romantic soulmate—a man to compliment me in all of my differences—but I’ve realized what I need most is a best friend.

I need a friend who I can be my total and utter complete self with—someone who never questions who I am today, based on who I was yesterday.

Because you know that I will change, yet you roll with it, instead of trying to make sense of it, and sometimes you know what I need before I even do.

I love that you haven’t just made me your friend, but part of your family as well, and there is no greater joy than seeing your children love me as much as you do, because you are a part of my family too. I love hearing my own children say that some of their best memories were created by your side.

There isn’t any greater friendship than the one where our children are friends too, and we can share in the crazy joy from watching them grow up together.

Life may change and throw us curve balls, and while I know we are always up for anything, sometimes life gets dark and difficult—but I know that no matter what happen, we will always have each other.

It means the world to me when you come by with flowers from your farm share, and little gifts to help cheer me up when I am feeling low, to help remind me of the woman I am. Not because we may not have men someday who love us, but because a different kind of bond exists between women who love each other—women who are sisters and care about what happens to each other.

I truly believe that we can travel through this life without a romantic love, but we simply can’t exist without the love of a best friend.

That’s not to say one is more valuable than the other, but just that maybe those soulmates who are best friends are the rarest of jewels.

Sometimes life gets so busy that between jobs that keep our heads spinning, and kids who keep us running around, it seems we just don’t always find the time to get together as often as we would like.

But the beautiful thing is that when we do find the time, we pick up exactly where we left off and create a thousand more memories that makes us giggle even when we are apart.

The thing is, I never expected to have a friend like you, but now that I have—I can’t imagine my life without you.

You simply make my life better, and I can’t ever thank you for being a shoulder to cry on or a patient ear when I need one.

And most of all, I can’t ever repay you for showing me that sometimes people really do stay.

I love you.

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Relephant:

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Author: Kate Rose

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Pixabay