Dearest Friend, I'm Thankful For You

Dearest friend,

I’m thankful for you.

I know. Thanksgiving is all about family, crowded up around the kitchen table (or maybe the “special occasion” dining room table!), eagerly stuffing our faces and sharing hilarious tales of days past. Family is important, but they get lots of credit. You don’t. You’re there for me day-in, day-out, without so much as a thank you. So this year, I hope you understand that I’m thanking the powers that be for you.

You were there for me when we were little, when we would order delivery pizza just to see if the “delivery guy” was cute. We’d come up with some elaborate plan -- both of us would be different characters, with roles to play when we opened the door. In our heads, he’d, instantly fall in love with the both of us, and the three of us (obvious hole in our plan?) would ride off into the sunset. Of course, we never got past opening the door without bursting into laughter, slamming the door shut, then making your big sister reopen it to pay the unassuming pizza delivery person. I love to think about these times; we had so much life ahead of us, but still managed to live completely in the moment. Now, things are complicated; I notice myself being anywhere but the present. Yet, hardly a day goes by without me reflecting on our innocent, silly days as girls. Thank you, dearest friend, for being a part of my past.

Day to day life isn’t lost on you, either. The little things, the mundane, then seemingly unimportant -- you’re all over it. When I left my job, a job that literally caused my mental status to deteriorate before your eyes, you were there every Friday afternoon, with a bottle of wine and a shoulder to cry on. When I decided to work for myself, and needed an on-call marketing consultant, you were ready at the helm, sharing your professional knowledge and answering my endless questions without ever screaming, ‘HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW THIS?” You spent hours helping me to build my vision, even taking time to pen articles yourself, sharing parts of your life that I never knew, that you never had to share, but you did. Thank you, dearest friend, for being a part of my present.

But the future -- our future -- is what excites me. I dream about building our woman empire together. How maybe one day, Ellen Degeneres will finally pay us a call, and we’ll finally get to choreograph our intro dance, because left to my own devices, we both know there’d be a lot of hip thrusting and pointing. I still dream about our ultimate dream (coincidentally, our husbands’ worst nightmare): to be next door neighbors. I dream about growing old together -- how, one day -- when we’re old and gray, and have nobody left, we’ll still have each other. And maybe one day, when our husbands pass on (or leave us, because we are extra), maybe we’ll just marry each other for the tax benefits, and finally give “the man” the middle finger like those women in Tanzania. Thank you, dearest friend, for being a part of my future.

So this Thanksgiving, as I gorge myself on my third helping of rum cake and apple cider, surrounded by my family and Boston terriers, I won’t forget how thankful I am for you. You don’t get the credit you deserve, so hopefully these words find you, wherever you are -- with family, with friends, at work, or alone. I’m thankful for you.

Love,

Brittany