Latest / The Letterbox Podcast / To My Best Friend On Her Wedding Day

Transcript

To My Best Friend On Her Wedding Day · The Letterbox Podcast

0:00
Hello to you wherever you are listening in the world right
0:02
now. Thank you so much for being
0:04
here. I'm Lucy, and this is the
0:06
Letterbox podcast, the place where real people share the real
0:09
letters they've written about the things that mean the most to
0:12
them. Today is October 2nd and that is
0:16
a date that is particularly important to the subject of
0:19
today's letter because it's her wedding day.
0:25
The letter was sent in by this bride's best friend.
0:29
It is a letter that absolutely celebrates love, celebrates her
0:34
friend getting married, but at the same time is incredibly
0:37
honest about the feelings that her friend has about their lives
0:41
moving on. I really, really love this about
0:44
the Letterbox broadcast because it is a space for people to be
0:47
completely honest with their feelings.
0:50
So thank you so much to Leah for sending today's letter in before
0:55
I share it, but I could just ask one thing of you and that is
0:58
that if you're not already, please do press the follow
1:02
button and then and then go and tell your best friend about the
1:05
Letterbox podcast. It really would mean the
1:08
absolute world to me and the letter writers if we could get
1:11
these letters heard by more people.
1:15
So here it is, the letter to her absolute best friend on her
1:20
wedding day. There is something nobody tells
1:26
you about growing up. Sometimes the people you love
1:31
don't leave, they simply begin belonging to places you cannot
1:35
follow them into. And perhaps that's why I don't
1:39
quite know what to do with the news that my best friend is
1:41
getting married. Because how do you celebrate
1:44
something so beautiful when a small, selfish part of your
1:49
heart is standing quietly in the corner, mourning the girlhood
1:52
you once shared? I am happy.
1:56
God, I am so happy for her. The happiness has never been the
2:02
only thing love knows how to feel.
2:05
Sometimes love is joy with tears in its eyes.
2:09
Sometimes it's looking at someone you've known for years
2:12
and suddenly realising we are not children anymore.
2:18
There was a time when I thought we'd always have endless
2:21
afternoons, endless conversations, endless stupid
2:25
plans, endless versions of ourselves still waiting to be
2:28
discovered. We thought life was something
2:32
that happened later. Marriage was later, growing up
2:36
was later, goodbyes were later, and somehow later arrived
2:40
without asking us if we were ready.
2:44
I look at Zany now, and I remember all the girls we've
2:47
been. The girls who laughed over
2:50
things and nobody else would understand.
2:52
The girls who could turn any day into a memory.
2:55
The girls who stayed awake too long, talk too much, ate too
2:58
much, cried when life became too heavy and somehow found a reason
3:01
to laugh again. The girl who knew I needed
3:04
someone before I knew how to say it.
3:07
The girl who stood beside me through chapters She didn't have
3:10
to. The girl who became home without
3:12
ever having to call herself born.
3:16
And now she's getting married. Someone else gets to know her
3:23
mornings. Someone else gets to hear the
3:25
stories I've heard 100 times. Someone else gets to watch her
3:29
become older. Someone else gets to sit beside
3:32
her when the world goes quiet. I know it sounds small, but
3:37
sometimes it's the smallest things that break your heart.
3:42
Because I don't think I'm afraid of losing her.
3:46
I'm afraid of losing the version of us that only existed because
3:49
we were those girls in that particular moment, with that
3:53
particular life. I'm afraid of the photographs
3:58
becoming memories, of the memories becoming stories, of
4:01
the stories becoming remember when we used to.
4:07
Perhaps that is what it means to love someone properly.
4:12
To let them become more than the person they were when you met
4:15
them. To clap when they walk towards a
4:18
life that doesn't revolve around you.
4:21
To be proud even when your heart aches.
4:26
To say go, be happy, build your home, fall in love, become
4:34
everything you're meant to become and still quietly whisper
4:40
just don't forget me, zany. I hope you never forget the girl
4:46
you were before this chapter. I hope you remember the
4:49
laughter, the late nights, the tears, the ridiculous
4:52
adventures, the conversations that lasted longer than they
4:54
needed to. The moments when we didn't have
4:56
answers, but we had each other. I hope you remember that along
5:02
the way, without us noticing, you became woven into my life
5:06
until I couldn't imagine my story without few pages that had
5:10
your handwriting all over them. And now your story is changing.
5:17
There will be pages I won't be on.
5:20
There'll be memories I won't witness.
5:22
There will be Tuesday mornings I will never know about.
5:27
And that's OK, because I don't need to be present for every
5:32
chapter to know how much I loved the ones I was given.
5:37
Realising that loving someone doesn't mean keeping them where
5:40
you found them. Sometimes it means opening your
5:44
hands. Sometimes it means watching them
5:47
walk towards something beautiful while you stand behind them,
5:50
smiling through the ache. So today I'm not saying goodbye
5:57
to my best friend. I'm saying goodbye to a version
6:01
of our lives. Because the girl I grew up with
6:04
is still there. She's just becoming someone new.
6:09
And maybe one day, years from now, we'll sit together and
6:12
laugh about how young we were. We'll talk about the girls we
6:16
used to be. We'll look back at photographs
6:18
and wonder how we ever thought we had life figured out.
6:22
And I'll tell her, you know, there was a time when you're
6:27
getting married. Broke my heart a little.
6:30
And she'll laugh. And I'll laugh too, because I'll
6:33
finally understand what I know now only in pieces, that some
6:37
endings are not endings at all. They are doors.
6:43
And today my best friend is walking through one, says Amy.
6:51
Go, go build the life you dreamed of.
6:53
Go love and be loved. Go make a home.
6:57
Go become older and wiser and softer and stronger.
7:01
Go live the life waiting for you.
7:06
And if one day you look back and wonder whether the girl who
7:09
stood beside you all those years ago still remembers, she does.
7:16
She remembers everything. She remembers who you were.
7:22
She remembers who you helped her become, and she will always be
7:27
grateful that for one beautiful stretch of this enormous life,
7:32
your paths cross so perfectly that you became sisters without
7:37
sharing a name. Maybe that is what best friend
7:42
really is. Not someone who promises that
7:45
nothing will ever change, but someone who says everything will
7:51
change and I will still love you.
7:57
So here's to you, Sammy. To the girl you were, to the
8:04
woman you are becoming, to the life you're about to begin, and
8:09
to the little piece of your girlhood that will always belong
8:12
to me, just as a little piece of mine will always belong to you.
8:16
I hope the world is gentle with you.
8:21
I hope marriage is kind to you. I hope love finds you again and
8:26
again, even on the ordinary days and when life moves too quickly,
8:30
as it always does. I hope you stop sometimes, look
8:34
around and realise you made it here.
8:40
And somewhere in another corner of this world, there is a girl
8:44
smiling through tears, thinking that's my best friend and
8:53
somehow that will always be enough.
9:00
I love you, Zany. Oh, a really, really lovely
9:08
tribute to your friendship on this incredibly special day for
9:12
both of you. Thank you so much, Leah, for
9:15
sending it in. And we need congratulations to
9:18
you on your wedding day. Sending both of you and all of
9:23
our listeners out there. So much love.
9:27
I'll see you again next time. Thank you for being here.