Dear Allie

There was a trend of creating and posting open letters to people. But we don’t play by the rules, right Allie? Fuck rules. So I am writing you a fucking letter and just calling it a letter, because I love you and it’s on the Internet.

Dear Allie,

I wanted to write you this letter to show you what you mean to me. It is hard to encapsulate how grateful I am for you in my life, but I will try. Let’s start there with the word try.

You are someone who takes action. You don’t “try” you DO. You get it done.

When I came to you with the Stigma Fighters Anthology, a series of essays about real people living with mental illness, you had a plan and you made that book happen. You knew what to do and you did it.

That is one of the many things that I love about you.

Here’s more…

You are fiercely loyal to your friends and would do anything to protect them. I admire that about you. You are a strong ass woman and nobody fucks with you.

Something that amuses me is that we can’t remember how we decided to work together on Stigma Fighters. It just naturally flowed. It happened. You were the Vice President and I was the CEO and even more than that, you became my best friend. I cannot imagine life without you and I don’t want to.

You are hard working, brilliant, a fucking amazing writer, sweet, hilariously funny to the point where I pee on myself when I talk to you, and you are my friend through and through.

You enrich my life. You make me want to be a better person and more than that,  you show me how to be one. You guide me down the right path. You gently show me my flaws and help me to realize how to work on them.

Allie, you are amazing. You have taught me so much and I cannot imagine my life without you and I don’t want to.

You are an incredible human being.

I love you.