my best friend jack

Loving Jackson Dunford was never a choice.

I was sixteen when we met, and it didn’t take long for me to fall for him. Our relationship felt natural. Familiar. Like Deja vu.

We grew up together. For years, we were each other’s everything.

But one thing we weren’t?

Friends.

I never related to the girls who talk about their boyfriends being their best friend. I didn’t get it. It annoyed me, actually. Maybe its because I always had guy friends growing up and I could only see them as friends and nothing more?

Or you know what, maybe, it’s because at one point…I couldn’t fucking staaaaand my boyfriend!

Every “married to my best friend” caption I saw, infuriated me. I couldn’t wrap my head around marrying someone you considered a friend. I couldn’t comprehend such an easy and painless love.

Jackson and I weren’t friends.

But it wasn’t always that way.

There was a magical year in high school that we spent dating, talking and skipping school to make out in church parking lots. I pretty much ditched all of my friends that year because we were so obsessed with each other.

I really did love him. So much. So fast. More than my sixteen year old self knew how to express outside of tweeting vague Lana Del Rey lyrics late at night.

I loved him so intensely, so deeply, it felt…beyond my control.

I continued to love him when he broke my heart 5 months after I graduated high school. I still loved him when I broke his, 3 months after that.

We took turns hurting one another in a toxic cycle that lasted years.

…and I loved him the entire time.

It wasn’t a choice. It was never a choice.

I was made to feel foolish about this love by most of the people around me.

I tried to hide the aftermath of my broken heart, but the Lana Del Rey lyrics were starting to get dismal.

People noticed.

“What do you see in that guy?” “You’re so much better off without him.” “He’s a loser!” my friends and family would tell me.

Because while I expressed my heartbreak through lyrics to sad break up songs, Jackson turned to substances to cope with his pain.

And here in Utah, substance abuse is a quick and easy way to ostracize yourself from your community.

In Utah, people can’t comprehend a pain so deep and isolating, you’d do anything to numb it.

So instead, they label you a loser. It’s easier than trying to understand.

I remember my mom desperately saying to me, “Is there ANYTHING he could do to make you stop loving him?”

I thought about it for a second. My mind went to the worst of the worst. But ultimately, every answer was the same.

“No.”

Heroin? He probably had a good reason! Murder? Tell me when and where we hide the body.

So maybe now, you can see why I kept going back, despite getting hurt over and over again.

My love for him was completely and entirely unconditional.

It wasn’t a choice.

And trust me, if it was, I would have made the choice to stop years ago.

Because even though I loved him, like my worried parents, I really wished that I didn’t.

When we weren’t together, I missed him. From far away, I could easily forget how excruciating our love was up close. With time and space, I was consumed by his best qualities and all of the reasons we were perfect for each other. That longing for what once was, always drove me to reaching out. It always felt like a good idea in the moment.

There was nothing like melting into his arms for the first time after months without talking.

That was my drug of choice.

But like most addictions, that initial high wears off.

And each time, reality would hit us harder and harder.

After we gave in to that longing for each other, the harsh truth would reveal itself…

This wasn’t working.

So we spent most of our time together, fighting.

That became our love language.

There was no pillow talk the girls who marry their “best friends” brag about.

There was jealousy. Accusations. Misunderstandings. Tears. Yelling. Blocking.

And even when things were good, we were still so damaged, I wondered if it was even worth trying at all.

We would get past the fighting stage of “getting back together” but I still wouldn’t tell any of my friends about it. I didn’t want him to come on trips with me. I would have him pick me up down the street, and around the corner so nobody could see us. We’d order takeout instead of going to restaurants.

We weren’t friends.

We were just tragically in love.

So this is why I had beef with the “married to my best friend” type of relationships. I was jealous. bitter. resentful.

I lost my best friend years ago. And I didn’t know if it was possible to get that back.

In July of 2019, I got pregnant. And miraculously, when I got pregnant, the fighting stopped.

Seriously!

All that money spent on plan b, when a baby could have saved us all along! Who knew?

After only a few months of us living together, it was pretty clear to me what had happened with us. My part in it all, at least.

There was so much noise. So many opinions about our relationship. So much fear surrounding it all. So despite Jackson’s desire for me and only me, I was terrified of getting hurt. I never allowed myself to fully surrender. I was always half in, half out.

It was like I was caring for a sunflower in a pitch black storage closet, and wondering why it wasn’t blooming.

We never created an environment for our relationship to thrive.

By letting other people’s perceptions of Jackson affect my status with him, I was setting us up to fail every single time.

It wasn’t until getting pregnant, that the noise stopped. Having a baby together forced us to finally create that environment for ourselves.

and once we did…

the magic started pouring back in.

Without the fighting, we finally had the chance to discover each other’s actual love languages.

Something we hadn’t done since we were teenagers.

It became apparent, very quickly, that Jackson’s love language was acts of service.

He loved to take care of me.

He did the dishes and the laundry every single day while I was pregnant, no complaints. He tested out 8 different detergents until he found one that met his standards. Our room was always clean. My feet were always rubbed. Food was in my hands before I could even finish the sentence “i’m hungry.” And even though he worked at 7 am, he would stay up all night with me, watching bad Hallmark Christmas movies when I couldn’t sleep.

I took a lot of baths. I spent most of the day in there for a period of time. And jack was always right there with me, sitting on the edge, listening to me ramble about my strategies for hiding a pregnancy that I studied from Kylie Jenner.

He hung on every word.

We talked. A lot. About our childhoods. About the years we spent apart. About how we want to raise our baby.

We had a lot of catching up to do.

We made up for lost time in that little bathroom.

In the loneliest, scariest time of my life, he never left my side.

Getting pregnant, and giving him a child, created the perfect environment for Jackson to love. For him to thrive.

Caring for us, and being our support, gave him a purpose.

He’s our protector.

And I started to fall in love with him all over again.

In the past two years, that love grew in unexpected ways.

Our love isn’t painful anymore.

It’s gentle. It’s breezy.

And surprisingly, it almost feels less “profound” now that we are off the emotional rollercoaster.

It’s simple now. It’s less dramatic. Those earth shattering “i’d do anything for love” moments aren’t as frequent with you’re on solid ground.

And even more surprisingly…I prefer it that way.

I don’t miss the rollercoaster. In fact, I get nauseous thinking about the rollercoaster.

My drug of choice these days is taking the baby to grandma’s house and spending our Friday night walking aimlessly around Trader Joe’s.

The simple life, is the life, guys. I’m telling you.

Last fall, we went on a trip together to Northern California. There is nothing I love more than going on a trip with Jackson. Every single part of it is enjoyable for me. The plane ride. The car ride to the plane ride! The first dispensary stop. Dragging our suitcases through the mountains to find the rare airbnb I spent 3 weeks trying to find. Deciding to not go out so we can stay in and doordash and watch tiktoks all night.

I started to realize that nothing was ever that bad, as long as Jackson was there. Cleaning. Taxes. Doctors appointments. Long road trips. Lame parties.

And not even in a codependent way, but in a, “you make everything exponentially more pleasant” way.

At one point, we had found a trampoline in the middle of the forest. Yes! A trampoline in the middle of the forest. We laid on it, looking up at the towering trees above us. The air was perfect, the trees stood still with no breeze, and it felt like we had the whole world on pause for a second.

I let out a sigh. We were leaving the next day, and I was starting to get the “end of trip blues.” like I always get.

But before I could ruminate on how good things never last, something hit me in the most simple and profound way.

“Jack?” I said, tilting my head up to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“You’re my best frie—dfsfdkjsnfkljdijdjgo” I tried to say — before I started blubbering.

I thought about all the trips I had gone on with friends in the past. And how the worst part was always the “goodbye” at the airport, after it was all over.

It hit me, in almost an adolescent way, that Jackson gets to come home with me. Forever.

Like a teenage girl having a parental approved sleepover, I was giddy at the idea that the fun didn’t have to stop.

It never had to stop.

We get to go home together after every trip. After every doctor’s appointment. After every lame party.

He is my home.

It was an overwhelming feeling of safety and security that I had never felt before.

What a blessing to end every single day in the arms of the person you love.

It was then, that I finally got to feel what those other girls feel.

The first time I understood what the hype was all about.

That was the first time that I was fully aware of it, in the moment.

I am in love with my best friend.

Loving you wasn’t a choice, Jack. It’s just apart of me. It’s who I am.

But saying yes to this lifetime with you was the easiest choice i’ve ever made.

I’ll choose you every single time.

I love you soooooooo so. so. much Jackson Dunford!!

26 years earthside my love.

Happy Birthday

Ind