When we became friends, I told you, inexplicably, all my stories—my hopes, my fears, my dream, my failures, my everything. I told you things I’d never told anyone. I told you things nobody else knows—things buried so deep down that I don’t even tell them to myself. I don’t know why I told you these things; because I felt safe with you, I guess. I trust you. You listen and accept everything without judging and then you tell a funny anecdote to make me laugh. I can say anything to you and it doesn’t phase you. I can use my inner voice with you. I don’t have to filter myself or pretend to be something that I’m not. You hold all of the unvarnished knowledge of me. You are the warehouse of the contents of my soul.

It was easy telling you everything in long emails that felt more like rambling diary entries written to remind myself one day, but there was that one truth I had to tell you in person. You already knew part of the story from when I knew you long ago, but like everyone else who knew a mirage of me, you didn’t believe the version of the story I told (it was only the tip of the story, anyway). When I saw you again and told you the final truth—the one I couldn’t tell in an email, you held me. I cried.

I knew, my friend, the first time I put my arm around you and rested my face on your warm chest that it was a place I always wanted to be. I felt protected by you, holding all that knowledge of me.

I’ve only felt that safe once in my life, when I was a small child and I would sometimes get to go to sleep in my dad’s bed. He would tell stories or sing songs and then I would throw my leg over his hip so that I knew he would remain there after I fell asleep. He would protect me from the boogieman, monsters under the bed, or any other thing that could hurt me. But then, the divorce, and that was the end of any sense of security.

Not that I expect you to save me from anything…but there’s a sort of sanctuary in knowing that someone knows what’s going on with you and is taking the journey with you—they have your back.

You are a treasure, BFF. You’ve enriched my life in ways I could not have foreseen. It’s odd that I should find true friendship in mid life, with a man who lives in another state, but I’m grateful for it just the same and I want it to last for the rest of our lives.

I wonder, though, what will happen to me when you die and take all your knowledge of me with you. Who will know me then? Who will “get” me? Who will understand my strange idiosyncrasies? My true self will, once again, be buried deep inside me.

Maybe I’ll go first, and you’ll never even know what happened to me. One day I’ll just stop writing. You’ll get worried after a few days and text, but I won’t answer. You’ll wonder if you did something wrong. Offended me. You’ll go on my Facebook to see if I’ve posted. Eventually, you’ll figure it out. And you’ll be upset that I didn’t send you a rambling email, spewing forth exit words like vomit, trying to explain the feelings of death, grief, and loss…and saying goodbye. But I’ll always be with you, because I’ve given you all of my intimate details to carry with you forever, just as I’ll carry your stories with me.