My Best Friend Died 37 Years Ago — I Might Not Be Over It Yet

“I don’t think you’ve ever gotten over Katie dying,” my said to me recently. “I think that’s why you don’t let your friends get very close.”

I thought I was over it. I hadn’t thought about her in a long while, and when I did think about her, it was good memories that didn’t make me feel sad. But was he right?

I met Katie my junior year of high school. I had changed schools for the third time in four years. And though I made new friends in each of the places I’d moved to, it was starting to feel like they were temporary friends only because I was in and out of their lives so quickly.

Then I met Katie, and we clicked like we’d known each other all our lives. She was everything I was not, but wanted to be. She was bold, beautiful, sexy, smart, and tall. When Katie walked into a room, people noticed. She never tried to make herself smaller, quieter, or less noticeable. She was unapologetically herself.

I was short, cute, smart but not as smart as her, and sweet. In high school, the guys would say to me, while ogling Katie, “You are the type we want to marry later, but Katie is the type we want now.” I think they meant this as a compliment, but in high school, it felt like a rejection. I wanted to be thought of like Katie — exciting, thrilling, sensual. And ironically…