platonic partner

TO:

Natasya Kusuma Yuliandani

Seyla Rizky Amelia

Devika Fajriah

Being a best friends means being willing to learn and adapt, to understand that i cannot control this person or make them be who i want them to be, that i love them precisely because they are their own person. i am the keeper of their secrets, the one they cried in front of, the one they are able to be fully themselves with. i was there through different relationships the way a people weathers different administrations, learning intimately what it is they are looking for and the mistakes they are making — mistakes i know i have to let them make for themselves, just as they allow me mine. Seeing this part of another human being, watching as they turn into people they would not have recognized a few short years ago, is nothing short of a gift. Being a best friend is to be a therapist when we are still so very deeply in the process of figuring things out for ourselves. 

It may sound like a job, and in many ways, it is. It’s not a straight line cutting through my life that starts with “meet this perfect person” and ends with “die laughing as old people drinking milk.” It’s something that demands admitting I am wrong, making sacrifices, and coming to understand that the decisions i would not make for myself may be the right ones for them. 

To have a love like this — one that i cannot control or tie down or even really fully define — is as precious as it is rare. i have endless guidebooks on how to navigate romantic relationships, but so few that tell me what to do when my best friend moves to a new city for the first time and i have to learn how to redesign our patterns and communication to bridge the gap. there are endless questions and challenges to be faced in a best friendship, almost all of which we have to figure out entirely for ourselves. but when everything is going wrong and there is only one person i know i can call who will be there free of judgment, of imposing their worldview on me, i cannot say it is not worth it.

and yet, (for me) working on things is such an essential part of being a best friend.. we will have disagreements, we will want different things, we will fight. 

but after all,  It’s the “I love you” of platonic relationships :)