To my daughter's best friend,
Believe it or not, I was once her and he was once you. Let me back up a little, and give you the back story....
When I was 15, I went on a camping trip up north. It is a trip that I'll never forget, it was that perfect summer week. That same week, there was another person who was camping, and his name was Spencer. He was 14. We met while we were at the pool but our campsites were literally across from each other. We were both shy at first but then we started to talk. The rest of that week was so much fun, we hung out constantly and went for walks, laid on a blanket and watched the stars at night, and we talked. You would have thought we had known each other forever. This was all before the age of social media and cell phones, computers, and texting. At the end of the week, we exchanged phone numbers and addresses and really didn't know what would happen from there. Well, the first letter was written on the ride home for both of us. Letters and phone calls happened weekly or more for the next several years. I had finally found"it", my best friend and soul mate. And, he found "it" too, his best friend and soul mate. We talked about everything, his music, my sports, his girl problems, my boy problems. I'll never forget that first letter when he told me he had a girlfriend and his first kiss. I was crushed, I was happy for him but I so wanted that to be me! Later, he told me that it felt the same for him, he wanted to be that guy but he didn't think it was fair because not only was I his best friend, we lived over 2 hours apart. Life went on, the letters and phone calls never stopping. Finally, my senior year of high school, his junior year, everything fell into place. I no longer had a boyfriend, he no longer had a girlfriend, and he asked me to come to his prom. I was so excited, it meant I was finally getting my chance. He was also excited because it was finally going to be "our time."
Now, this is where I'm going to give you some advice, and not the "rest of the story." The rest hasn't happened yet...
Don't let being best friends ruin what might be "our time" for the two of you. Don't let someone else get the opportunity to be the first date, first boyfriend, first kiss, first anything. If you love someone, it won't ruin being best friends, it will make it stronger. There is a time to be scared but there is a time to throw caution out and take the chance. If you don't, you might be Spencer and I, waiting for the right time, for " the rest of the story" to finally get to be our story. When two people are truly soul mates, you know all the good and the bad, the annoying and not so annoying, the beauty and the sadness of each other. You know that's the person who will come see you at 1 a.m. just because, who will buy you a slush everyday not because you expect it but because she wants to. It's the person you are comfortable enough to let see you happy, sad, angry and defeated, to watch movies with and replace the characters with yourselves. It's having the dad who says "she's good for you" or who, 20 some years later will still carry around a picture of the two of you from a high school dance because she's the one you never should have let go of. (True story, Spencer's dad).
I know that you probably go crazy when you see the messages from me but dang it, the two of you are the two of us and I don't want to see you never get to have what we could have had and may someday still get the chance to have. Don't wait until you are in rocking chairs in a nursing home, that's our time. The two of you deserve to have all of those years together.
You've chosen to love a dangerous sport, you know the risks, you know the rewards. When I hear you talk, she is always there in your future plans. You might not even hear yourself say it but you do. You two are young, you are just starting high school. I know that you wonder what will happen. You have choices to make. You have the girl who will be there for you through every choice you make, even if those choices are breaking her heart. I'm not sure how you would react to knowing someone else got to be all those firsts for her. I have a pretty good idea though. You would try to pretend it was no big deal, but I think your heart would be broken too.
I've always told you that I would be honest with you. I've given this so much thought and just didn't know if I should tell you all of this or not. My heart tells me that I need to share it with you. I'm going to send it to Spencer and see what he thinks. That's probably one of the parts of our story that I'll have to share someday too. We did find each other again. It was a crazy road to get there and we don't talk like we used to but he is still that person. I can't even describe it, I wish we could know how the rest of the story would have went for us.
Don't be us, don't lose the chance. Don't be scared by your age, we were that age too. You won't know how good it can be if you don't take the chance.
... your best friend's mom
