dear tara,

Day 5, Sunday: Publicly profess your love and devotion for one of your friends. What makes them great? Why do you love them? 

i am thankful and fortunate enough to have a few people pop into my mind over this topic but today i have decided to talk about my friend tara. not only because i absolutely adore her but because she is definitely worthy of being gushed over a little bit.

i met tara back in 2010 when i was working with her mom at the front desk of an auto body shop. her mom and i became good friends so when she told me she thought i would get along with her daughter i was excited to meet her. we hung out with her mom a few times and would get dinner every now and then but the two of us never really spent any time together for a few months. we both figured out that we love books and reading so we decided to start a book club. the first time we ever hung out just the two of us we were suppose to get together to talk about the book but we ended up getting lunch, shopping, and hanging out all day. i honestly don't even think we talked about the book once! since then our relationship has changed and grown throughout the years. 

when i was living in florida tara would send me little letters with her favorite quotes at the top and tell me about her week or her job or what was going on in her life. i checked the mail every week to see if i had a letter from her because it always brightened my week. i realized then, after two years of knowing her, that she was finally letting me in with. she was finally telling me about HER. the beginning of our friendship was mostly her listening and me talking. she's probably one of the greatest listeners i've ever met. and it's not even that she's only listening, she's hearing what you're saying. she cares about what you are saying because she cares about you. but she never really had opened up to be about much. she was guarded and shared little with me. at first i took it personally but then i realized that she had been hurt by people in the past. and she is shy and sweet and not just anybody gets to be close to her. it's an honor just to know her and if you can be someone who is trustworthy then you get the privilege of truly knowing her and her heart. 

so i made it my goal to be someone she could trust. i told charla once that she's someone that you have to earn their trust in order to get close to them and that  having her in my life is worth the work of proving myself. when i moved home from florida last august something in our friendship was different. i realized that out of almost all my friends i left back in sacramento that she is the one who was there for me. supporting me and loving me even from thousands of miles away. and since then, the two of us have been inseparable. i made it my mission to ask her about her, to spend time with her, and to listen instead of speak. i am use to having people in my life just tell me everything that was going on but with tara she isn't someone who just throws all their problems on the table. you kind of have to coax it out of her. but slowly but surely i've seen her walls come down and we've gotten closer and i've been able to be there for her the way she has been for me all along. also, before my move,  i would see her once every two or three weeks but now i am seeing her more than once a week. which makes me SO happy!

near the end of december we were sitting in a dimly lit coffee shop talking over lattes and tea pots and we were talking about our new years resolutions. and one thing i said is i wanted to be closer to her. and she agreed. we wanted to grow in our friendship and become the other person's support system in time of need. shortly after, we began going to young adult's church together and started growing closer together and closer in our relationships with God.

the one thing i love most about tara is how easy it is to be around her. i can spend 12 hours with her and not even realize it. we usually end up at a movie and dinner but we also  shop together, and go to dinner, and watch movies, and paint our nails, and just enjoy spending time with each other. and more than anything we are always laughing and making new inside jokes. she's so much fun to be around and i love they days where we do nothing but just hang out.

the most important thing about tara is her heart. she loves people so much and being close to her is something i never want to take for granted. she makes me want to be a better person and she always encourages me and hears me out even when i'm being stupid. she is so thoughtful and generous and will give me little surprises like books from my favorite author just because she thought of me. i don't think i know a single person who is as thoughtful and kind as her. sometimes i wonder why i am the lucky one who got to be close to her but i know that God put us in each other's lives for a reason and i don't want to ever forget that. 

i hope to one day be able to love on the people closest to me the way she does. because in reality, it's an honor that i get to call her one of my best friends. i am so very fortunate for the past three years and hopefully for the next 100 to come. 

tara, if you are reading this by any chance. thank you. thank you for being my friend. for laughing with me over chi-fi-pie fries. for watching mary kate and ashley movies with me. for talking with me about my dreams and always encouraging me. for being a safe place for me here. for writing to me in florida and for being the first person i wanted to see when i got home. for not hurting me. for accepting me for who i am and where i am. for never hiding your true self from me. for telling me about your hopes for the future. for talking to me about history and answering my millions of questions. and above all, for allowing me to be close to you and get to know you. i love you so much and i can't wait for what the future has for us. i am so thankful for you. i hope you always know that. 

xoxo