You’ve Got a Friend in Me
By Colleen Edwards
A couple of weeks ago, Emma and I sat on our twin hotel beds, eating Cheetos Puffs and watching Toy Story, when the song “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” started playing. I looked over at her and just smiled like a goofball. If you told me at the beginning of this year that I would be living with my best friend on Maui, and I would be happy, and I would discover the best burrito in the world…
Well, I would’ve laughed in your face.
Emma and I have been best friends since we were six years old. We went through our awful dorky middle school phase together and didn’t really give two shits about how ugly we were or how the ‘popular’ kids perceived us. We still believe we peaked in fifth grade, when Emma won the school Chili Cook-Off and we chanted her name and we went back home feeling like champions. Or maybe it was during a seventh-grade school project, when we made up superhero characters for ourselves and my entire body disappeared except my head, and Emma’s superpower was that she could ‘sometimes’ make plants grow.
We spent middle school running around like hooligans playing tag and throwing goldfish at each other. High school was filled with first crushes, first relationships, first heartbreaks, and countless weird moments. Emma went to prom with my twin brother (as friends) and we always joke we are the triplets. We rented a bouncy house with a couple of our other friends the night before we left for college because we didn’t want our childhood to end. We first got “drunk” off vodka-filled gummy bears and a little bit of Mike’s Hard Lemonade. We’ve experienced family sickness together, family loss together, and everything in between.
We spent college in different spots but still found ways to meet up and travel the world, and when we graduated we spent months living in a van in New Zealand, backpacking across Thailand and Vietnam. When COVID hit, I got a job in Chicago and Emma got a job on Maui. We went our separate ways, always hoping we’d someday be in the same place again.
Here I am now—having spent six months living with Emma on Maui—-and quite honestly, this is the happiest I’ve ever been.
People don’t talk about friendships a lot. Emma and I always joke that our friends are all getting married or in long-term relationships and having kids, and we struggle to figure out what to make for dinner. But why don’t people write love stories about friendships? I think most of the time, long-term, trustworthy friends are much more important than who you are in a relationship with. Relationships come and go quickly, especially in our 20s, and we place so much emphasis on them. In fact, sometimes Emma and I joke that most people probably think we are dating, because of all the time we’ve spent together.
But honestly, Emma is my best friend. She always has been and always will be. She will be there for all the future partners, future heartbreaks, all the grief and happiness and confusion that makes up our lives. She has been with me for most of my favorite moments in life.
It is so incredibly special that we are able to talk about memories from 15 years ago. We have some of the stupidest, most ridiculous stories together and I’m sure there will be plenty more in the years to come.
I don’t think there is anything more powerful than strong, lifelong friends. It is odd to think about getting older and how much more living we get to do (fingers crossed). I know Emma will be there for all the big things, but also all the little things too.
We laugh over elementary school tag games, 8th-grade graduation (when we thought going to different high schools was the worst thing in the world), leaving for college, visiting each other in college, going abroad together for the first time. Dancing in the rain after watching a Thai boxing match, drunk off cheap beer. Wine nights and boat days and watching sunsets from the roof. The list goes on.
Emma and I have a unique situation where we can “see” our future, because our moms are absolute best friends as well. We make fun of them a lot but it’s really just us making fun of ourselves—because that will be us in 40 years.
Emma is actually the nicest human in the world, and that’s not being biased. Ask anyone who’s met her and they would agree. I am incredibly lucky to be able to look up to her and have her by my side.
This friendship has taught me a lot over the past decade, but I think the most important lesson I have learned from Emma is that life is really beautiful. It can be difficult to stay positive sometimes but she is always looking on the brighter side of things-even if they’re tiny things. Hot coffee on a cold day? Hell yeah, she thinks that is the best thing in the world.
I will only ever have one thing negative to say about her and that is this—she hates jelly and all jams. I don’t understand it and I don’t respect it but everyone has to have a flaw, and that is hers.
Emma is and always will feel like home to me. She has helped me through the worst times in my life and I’m sure will help me through many more unknowns. I remember a specific moment at our 8th-grade graduation, when I told her, “It feels like things won’t ever be the same.” But they were, and they have continued to stay the same throughout all these years of moving and coming back together and moving again.
We have changed as people in the past 15 years (thank goodness) but our change has helped us grow and understand more of ourselves. But in a lot of ways, we are still the ten-year-old girls who decided to make up a word “spawesome” (special and awesome) and have a funeral for a bouncy ball named Bobby.
I keep a running list of weird things Emma has said over the past few years on my phone. Some of my favorites:
“I feel like I just mowed a lawn and ate it.”
“I somehow always forget to play Uno even though the rules are so simple.”
“I love me because I’m me.”
“The subtle flavor of honeydew makes me want to die.” (She despises all melons).
“Alas, I was just a cookie.”
Everyone deserves an Emma. I am lucky to know mine. I hope you find yours.
Colleen Edwards loves burritos, writing, and camping. Until recently, she worked for Chicago’s Homeless Coalition to find housing for people who are in need. She hopes to one day write for National Geographic. Follow her on Instagram: @colleenedwards.
