“It’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later.” This is what my best friend Mariana and I say whenever we see each other now. If we’re lucky, we get to see each other about once a year.
Mariana and I met in middle school. We didn’t have any classes together, but we were both in the school band. Somehow, even though we both played different instruments and sat in different sections, we totally hit it off and became instant best friends. We even switched seats around with people so we could sit next to each other during band practice. The teacher didn’t let this happen for long, as you can imagine.
During the week we goofed off in the hallways at school and at band practice, and on the weekends we had multi-night sleepovers, went to the movies, football games- you name it. Mariana and I did everything together.
Fast forward to 2019, Mariana has lived in Florida for about six years now. She, her mom and her brother moved south after our freshman year of high school.
We were both devastated. We didn’t have a plan for the future, but we knew it didn’t include us being separated by thousands of miles before we even turned 16.
We kept in touch over text, social media, and video chats but it wasn’t the same. I missed my closest friend so much and she was thoroughly missed during the remainder of my time in high school.
Fall of the sophomore year came around and my travel lacrosse team had a tournament in, you guessed it, Florida. My first thought was, “I need to see how close we are going to be to Mariana.”
She lived a few hours away from Orlando, Florida, where we were going for the tournament and I knew I had to see her when I was down there.
In a study by the Association for Psychological Science, researchers found that only one percent of 7th-grade friendships last until senior year of high school. Mariana has far surpassed this timeline.
I invited Mariana to come to Orlando with my family and to come to watch me play lacrosse for the time I was there and she was thrilled to make the trip to see me. I still remember when we first reunited in the hotel lobby of the Disney Animal Kingdom Lodge Hotel- it involved lots of tears, laughs and hugs.
The tournament was in November around my birthday, and to make the trip extra special on top of seeing Mariana, we also went to Disney World with my family. Mariana and I often call each other our soul mates and this was such a magical and fun trip for us to reconnect- especially after she moved so far away.
What really impressed me about my best friend on this trip was her willingness to watch me play game after game of lacrosse and sit with my family on the sidelines- while we weren’t gallivanting around Disney.
Mariana even took pictures of me playing lacrosse on my DSLR camera. Rain or shine, even as a non-lacrosse player with little to no knowledge of the game, she never complained and was more than happy to support me.
I still have the t-shirt she insisted on buying me as a birthday present at the tournament- a hot pink “spirit jersey” with “LACROSSE” on the back.
I don’t think anything will ever beat the amount of fun we had on that trip to Orlando and the ESPN sports complex. Mariana was and still is one of my most supportive and caring friends.
Since Orlando, Mariana has come back home to visit a few times and I went back to Florida in 2017 to visit her again. I stayed for an entire week, met all of her new friends, went to Epcot for the first time, the zoo and so much more. I will never forget how much fun these Florida trips were.
We don’t talk every single day and I haven’t seen her in almost a year, but that doesn’t matter because of the connection we share. I know I can call her at any time and we can pick up right where we left off whether it’s to vent about life or just to chit chat. That’s what best friends are for.
According to a group of experts, seeing each other constantly is not what makes a good friend. The best friendship takes open communication, consistency, good listening and so much more. Mariana and I hit these categories out of the park and that is why our friendship continues to thrive all these years later.
