A year without…
Last year I met my platonic soulmate, accountability partner, and best friend 5,000 miles away from home.
We met during our study abroad in Greece, and we were both assigned to the same apartment with 10 other girls. As we learned more and more about one another we grew closer because we noticed how similar we were. We could talk for hours on end, and we never got tired of eachothers prescense. With her, I had an infinite social battery. We spent three months together in Greece, traveling to over 5 different countries together, and we made enough memories to last a lifetime. I was so grateful for her prescence in my life, and I knew that she would stand by my side at my wedding one day. I included the photo of our text messages above because this is how we would communicate with oneanother with the best interest.
After three incredible months, our study abroad experince came to an end, and it was time for us to go home to Michigan and Minnesota. Although we were not physically together anymore, we stayed virtually connected. We made it a goal to send one another three gratitudes each day to hold eachother accountable, and to stay up to date on one each other’s lives. This was such a healthy practice for us because we both have such busy lives, but it was the one thing that grounded and brought us back together each day. Her mother, who is a therapist, gave us this idea. On Janurary 1, 2023, we had a facetime date to make vision boards! We had so much fun, and we talked for almost 4 hours about our goals for the new year. I had never met someone that I felt understood and believed in me so much. We both were one another’s biggest fans, and it was like talking to a refection of ourselves when we spoke.
Our vision boards for the new year were so fun to create. I sat down with a stack of old People magazines and went crazy cutting out quotes, photos, and different inspirational symbols. She did the same, and we really made it a point to have specific practices that we wanted to implement in our lives for the new year. I centered my board around the quote, “I want to see what will happen if I don’t give up”. We knew we were going to continue our three gratitudes each day, healthy eating, working out, journaling, graduating, and much more. We both were in our last semster of college, as student-athletes, so it was a hard time for the both of us; however, everything seemed so much easier knowing we were going through it together. I never felt alone or anxious knowing she was by my side, and I appreciated her encouragement and reassurance more than anything!
About a month into our new years resolutions, I had came across an article on Pinterest about a girl that gave up one thing a month for the whole year. She would go a month without dairy, red meat, Netflix, social media, alcohol, etc, and then at the end of the month she would reflect on how it made her feel and decide if she wanted to cut it out completely. I thought this would be a fun idea for her and I to try, and I already knew she was going sober for January, so she already had month one complete. I offered up the idea to her, and as you can see, she was immediately in! I sent her some of my ideas, and we both decided what we were going to remove or add each month! For example, remove bread, dairy, alcohol, social media, etc, and implement yoga, meditation, journaling, or reading. Some of her ideas were three compliments a day to a stranger or herself, Sunday reset, journal 2x a week, yoga, give more grace to self, self care, and self love.
We came up with all these really fantastic ideas, and I was so excited to try this out for 2023. She really made anything seem possible, so I thought we would be able to add this to our goals with no problem. As we moved onto February, we did get a little short with our communication, but I didn’t seem to think anything of it. She was in the peak of her track season, planning a trip to Europe for her spring break, and finishing her final semster. She messaged me on February 9th, and she said, “Patty how do I get out of this funk”. I asked her what was going on, and she said she was consumed with negativity and struggling to see the bigger picture. I was so sad that she felt like this, but this is what accountability partners are for. I was so happy she trusted me enough to open up about how she was feeling. I sent a long response that I had to curate it in my notes before sending it.
It went something like this, “I know I always say this but mindset is everything, and I think sometimes it’s our biggest competitor. You have to convince yourself that you are capable of accomplishing things so much larger than you can imagine. It’s boring if our goals are in reach. My fav line... we’re all doing this life for the first time. I was thinking about this the other day that I look up to you and believe in you so much, and I obviously feel the same support/love from you but sometimes I don’t think we see it in ourselves. We need to view ourselves how we view each other in a way! Perspective is everything. Remember when we went abroad and got to create this new versions of ourselves? Just because the people around us know our past doesn’t mean we can’t do that again! Growth doesn’t have to happen when something big happens or with some change in our life. Our small practices of gratitude and meditation are so important, and I know that we will see progress with time. Nothing can change overnight, and I think if you’re expecting immediate results it’s harder to see any. You’re doing all the right things, but you just need to be a little bit easier on yourself”.
I went on to talk about a podcast she had recently shared with me, “That podcast you sent me said, ‘You will be presented with the same challenges until you choose to evolve. Make your current level unacceptable because you’re worthy of more. Passionate people do not remain’. I still think about that constantly, and trust me it comes in waves! I was feeling so overwhelmed this week and I still am. I was also feeling a lot of self doubt, like I was questioning my goals. When I start to feel like this, I get so disassociated from reality and I hate it. I think when this happens it’s important to go back to the basics; forcing a routine, forcing socialization, and more because if we don’t we will start to shy away from those things and get into a funk. This is where we are comfortable! I wish there was an answer, but that’s what also makes this life so interesting is that there is no right way”!
She replied in the most beautiful way, with an abundance of gratitude and compliments. She stated that she would save that message to her notes and refer to it whenever she was experincing self-doubt or fear. She reassured me that she understood and agreed with everything I was saying. She finished her reply with some affirmations in all capatalized letters stating, “WE WILL GRADUATE AND WE WILL BE MOVING ON TO BIGGER AND BETTER THINGS”. We continued the conversation for awhile, and it ended up on a very positive note. I felt like I had switched her perspective a bit, and that is my main goal as an accountability partner. In the next two weeks following this conversation, our texts messages got a bit more vague. I didn’t realize it then, but now it seems so apparent. She would send more brief gratitudes or maybe even skip a day. The one thing that is very apparent to me now is the abundance of I love yous from my best friend.
The last text she ever sent me was on February 20th, and it said, “I love you” and “I am so grateful for you patty”. I replied with an ily back, and I sent my gratitudes for the day. I also sent another photo from Pinterest that said, “Gratitude turns what we have, into enough”. I still wonder if she ever saw that photo. The following day, after no reply, I sent another message saying, “Are you good”, and the next day I got the worst news of my life. It was so unlike her to not answer my messages, and I wish I would’ve tried to call her when I noticed this. You may notice that throughout this article I have been switching from past to present tense because it is still hard for me to talk about her in the past tense. On February 22, 2023, I lost my best friend. On 2/22, our angel numbers, I recieved a phone call from one of my other study abroad roomates that she went to school with.
When she called me, my heart dropped and I immediatley got so emotional. Before she even broke the news, I feared I understood what had happened, and my best friend was gone forever. This is so hard to understand. I just came up on eight months without her, and it is still something that I don’t want to accept. I still read through our messages, listen to her voice notes, and old memories of us. Everything reminds me of her. Grief does come in waves, but when the tide high, it can be quite hard to deal with. As I reflect and reread our messages, I really have thought about how we were doing, “A year without…”, but I never thought I would have to do a year without her. We talked about everything under the moon, but I never expected living a life without you.
