Diary To Cloud

“Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me?”- Taylor Swift

I met my best friend when I was 4. I don’t remember how we met or what the first thing she ever said to me was. Given the nature of our friendship, it was probably something along the lines of me crying over something trivial and her telling me that it would be fine and crying was for babies. She would’ve said it in the same straightforward and practical tone that therapists would use with a patient, to shake them out of the cycle of despair that they trapped themselves in. I would’ve sniffled, wiped my eyes and then extended the same hand as a gesture of friendship. 

We were attached to the hip from day one. We shared a few similarities, short black hair that reached our chin, round glasses and chubby cheeks that we thankfully outgrew.  It got to a point where people couldn’t tell who was who. People would call her by my name or me by hers simply because the back of our heads looked identical. I was attached to her. When the teacher separated us for field trips, I would be hysterical, complaining that I couldn’t go anywhere without her. Everywhere she went, I went with her. 

In the song “Dorothea” by Taylor Swift, she sings about a friend who grew up and left her hometown to chase bigger and better dreams. She muses about whether Dorthea remembers the girls they were back when they were in high school, giggling teenagers under bleachers and in parks. Dorthea has moved on. She has shiny new friends. She barely texts her back. She doesn’t visit as often as she promised. 

Then, I was 12 when I moved to the United States. We went from living across the street from each other to having to coordinate a nine hour time difference to get a chance to text each other at the same time. I had no choice but to move on, make new friends and leave behind the girl I was. I had to adapt, grow up. Whenever I called my best friend, she would complain that I had an accent now, something she had specifically asked me not to do when I was leaving. I was different now, accent and all.

My best friend and I were cut from the same cloth. Same nuclear family, both good students with a decent number of friends and a passion for the arts. As kids, we would dance together, pretending to be Olympic skaters or martial arts experts while blasting Imagine Dragons because one day, we would both grow up and become whatever we wanted. 

“Hey, Dorothea, do you ever stop and think about me?”

I think about her when I see old pictures of myself. I think about her when someone calls me their best friend and my guard raises and I feel like screaming “I’m taken!” to their face. I think about her when I cry and I need someone to shake me out of it. She made me the girl I am today so if I ever left her behind, it would mean leaving me behind too. There’s no me if there’s no her.