Dear First Best Friend,

Remember, how we used to play for hours and hours in your backyard? 

You were my first best friend. In my life, I have made a only a very few best friends and I keep losing all of them very quickly to my competitor, time. 

I have no memories of when and how we first met. I've known you since we were in grade one. We declared ourselves BFFs and lived up to that title every single day we played. Even though we met quite often, we didn't live close. I remember the car rides to your house. The long, dreary rides that suddenly became joyous when the white dome appeared on the windshield. We turned right, went down a couple of narrow lanes and I met you. If I close my eyes now, I can walk myself down your drive way, up to your front porch and come running out of the back door, holding hands with you. It's like a 3D movie. The memories are exceptionally vivid and colorful but when I reach out my hand, they cruelly dissolve into thin air. 

We had twin gadgets. You had a pink Gameboy and so did I. You had a Fanta orange tamagotchi and I had a soda green tamagotchi. I remember the endless hours when we used to dodge your little brother and play Gameboy in the hiding. I have to tell you, your little brother was a handful. I remember the muddy place near your house, where we used to have incredible fun making mud commodities. Remember the day I taught you how to gulp lunch down our throats with water because we badly wanted to go back and play hide and seek with the neighborhood kids? 

We used to fight too. We usually fought when we went shopping with our parents. We used to cling to our dads and ride in separate cars and talk to our befuddled siblings about how much fun it would have been if our cousins were there. Both of us managed to make each other a little bit envious of the 'really fun' cousins. And then, after all those years, our parents fought. All of a sudden, there were no more visits from your family or mine. Nobody talked about you, your little brother or your parents anymore. You left the country. I was really sad.

Now, after all these years, I find your profile on Facebook. It feels very awkward as if I'm peeping through your window while you're brushing your hair. I'm not going to send you a request because I'm not supposed to. You have grown into a beautiful woman and I really like your hair. I go through your photos and find pictures of you having fun with your friends. Have you made best friends? I feel a pang of inexplicable jealousy, looking at the girl who is always next to you in many of your pictures. 

You were always the kind one. You used to get me like no other friend of mine did. I still have the tamagotchi book that you gifted me, which my parents refused to buy. I sometimes wonder if you still think of me as your best friend, like I do. Are you still the kind and compassionate girl that I used to know?

To this day, I still think of the little story that we made, frolicking in your backyard. After we go our own ways, we would meet one day in a supermarket and be like 'Hey, is that you? How have you been? Where are you working?' We surely didn't know about emails and social networking back then. And I'm glad that we didn't. If we had known, we wouldn't have made this story. When I'm sometimes lonely and have no one to talk to, I think about you and all the happy memories that we made and imagine how it would have all been if we were still friends. I really wish we meet someday in the future supermarket.

And thanks for being my wonderful first best friend. 

Love, 
Your Lost Best Friend.