I Opened a Box of Old Letters and Found My Best Friends

Before texts and social media, friendship arrived in an envelope.

Dear Reader,

Best friends come and go.

They arrive for seasons of our lives—months, years, sometimes decades—and then, sometimes, they leave. Not always dramatically. Sometimes there’s a rupture, something said or done that shifts everything. And sometimes there’s no rupture at all. We simply grow in different directions until the distance between us becomes normal.

I’ve had many best friends.

The best friend I had in middle school is not the same as the one I had in high school, or college, or the years after. Or now. Each one belonged to a different version of me. Looking back, I don’t just remember the friendships, I can see them, because I still have some of the letters.

With National Best Friend Day coming up (June 8), I thought I’d dive back into those letters. Rereading them still makes me smile. Memories leap off the page. Friends asking if I want to share a limo to senior prom, wondering what major I’d finally chosen in college, announcing engagements, divorces, new jobs, moves across the country, bouts of loneliness. They wrote to share their lives, ask for advice, celebrate milestones, or simply stay connected.

What strikes me most isn’t what they wrote about, but that they took the time to write at all.

Sampling of letters from then and now.

Before texts and social media, friendship often arrived in an envelope. You sat down, gathered your thoughts, and devoted time to another person. There was something intentional about it. Something generous. A letter wasn’t dashed off while standing in line for coffee. It required effort.

Some friends I still see every summer. Some I text every few months. Some haven’t been in my life for decades. That’s how it goes. No clear ending. No single explanation. Just time moving things around.

And yet here they are, still intact in their own way, these voices from other versions of my life. They remind me not only who my friends were, but who I was when they knew me. Ambitious. Confused. Heartbroken. Hopeful.

In the last few years, I’ve made new friends. We communicate in all the modern ways—texts, emails, video chats—but I handwrite them letters too. Real ones. And some, to my delight, write back, telling me it’s been years since they’ve put pen to paper and how good it feels to do so.

Maybe that’s why I save every letter. Not because I expect the friendships to last forever, but because each one captures a moment when two people cared enough to reach across the distance and say, “Here’s what’s happening in my life. What’s going on in yours?”

What makes someone go from a friend to a best friend? That’s easy. The second someone decides I was worth the time it took to sit down and write.

And thankfully, no one says you can only have one best friend.

With love (and a ton more letters to reread),

P.S. After rereading these letters, I found myself wondering: Which old friend will I write to this week? If someone came to mind while reading this, maybe that’s your sign to reach out. You never know who might be delighted to find your name in their mailbox.

SONG OF THE WEEK

Schoolin’ Life by Beyonce