if you’re a girl, think about that one and only guy friend who’s never made you feel uncomfortable. mine? ascher spottswood.
i feel an equal amount of encouragement from ascher when i'm around him and when i'm over 1,000 miles away; i will never fear having someone to support me as long as he’s in my life. ascher dreams big. he is dedicated to every & all goals he has for himself, & genuinely wishes for my success as much as he does his own. he supports me for the person i am & the person i strive to be—he is my truest friend through all the insignificant changes needed for me to get where i want to be in this life.
i think him & i both agree that we see ourselves in one another—many of our friends have agreed that we are the male & female versions of each other. but despite our similar personalities, humor, & mindset, our friendships prospers in the desire we have in the fullness of each other, not just the parts of each other the reflect on one another. sure, it’s nice to see ourselves in other people. we’re just human; it’s nice to find a home in someone else or someone that makes you feel less lonely. but there are parts of ascher that i still don’t understand, parts of him that make me think critically, but those are all the things that make him, HIM. ascher has never said that he expects me to be perfect friend or person everyday, but, instead, he gives me a pat on the back & hopes i do better the next.
honestly, i can’t really recall how or why ascher & i ever first became friends--i actually used to think he thought he was too cool for school, because he never talked to anyone in rotc, so i avoided him at all costs. all i do remember is that we decided to do homework together at greenwise on a random friday & here we are now. ascher is one of the first people i told that i was leaving fsu to. i didn’t know him all that well when i first told him, but sometimes your soul just kinda knows who’s meant to be in your life & who just fits in it, so i told him that in five months i would be moving out of tallahassee for good. ascher never made me think for a second that i couldn’t succeed at west point or even tried to get me to stay—he knew that this is where i needed to be, & you have no idea how rare that type of support was for me back then.
parts of me didn’t want to leave florida state because of the equilibrium i found there in my second year. we would joke about what it would be like if i stayed, thought about the next two years we had in rotc, & realized that things really aren’t that bad as long as we both get to sit in an AAR (after action review) together & make the frantic “we’re going to talk about this later” eye contact to each other after any minuet controversial comment made by our peers. but i had to go, & i’m lucky enough to know that our friendship hasn't changed.
i explain to all my friends that every time i go out with them or get together, it makes me really happy because it gives me an escape from my own head; sometimes i feel alone & it feels nice to be around platonic love sometimes. ascher once told me “we get along well because we are the same people everyday. i wake up every morning & i know that the steff this morning is the same steff from yesterday” & that perfectly summarized why we DO get along so well. this life is about finding stability, whether that’s in your work, friendships, love life, home life, whatever it is, everyone is always looking for stability. i’ve never had to worry about which ascher i was getting, & even if one of us had little moments of frustration or annoyance, we knew that it was temporary.
when i met ethan, i really thought i’d never meet another person that would truly become like a brother to me; i had ethan & i didn’t really think there’d be anyone else who could support me the way he did. i think God knew that i needed just one more person to consider family, & that person was ascher. growing up, i realized that in my life the “if it’s meant to be, it’ll be” philosophy never applied to my romantic relationships, but, instead, to my platonic ones. my platonic friendships have met every version of myself & have chosen to still take the journey of life alongside me.
i have found a family within ascher & his girlfriend, caroline. i consider myself lucky to not only just find ascher but to also know caroline. while caroline & i never got to live in the same city at the same time, there is so much love i have for her because she is an extension of ascher. at the end of last july, during my basic training, i got to use a phone for 10 minutes to call my loved ones. in those 10 minutes i called my mom & ascher & caroline. they were on vacation in costa rica & a piece of me was relieved to know that there were people waiting for me to come back. caroline shared as much excitement for my phone call as ascher did, as i showed them around my bland barracks room, & beige hallways. i will always think back to that time, how meaningful those few minutes were. somewhere in the future, i know ascher & caroline are my neighbors & our kids grow up to be best friends.
i know love exists because my friends & i are full of it. i have made homes without walking on eggshells, without diminishing my own personality in the preservation of someone else’s, without screaming matches & slamming doors. i have invited my friends over for dinner, spent hours together with no phone, & have gotten drunk off of wine & laughter on thursday evenings. i reach out to them in passing time & they reach back out to me. i know what the standards of long distance relationships are because ascher taught me what they look like. ascher gave me the reassurance go far away in pursuit of my dreams— he reminded me that there’s always a flight back home to visit once i've made it.
when it was cloudy for six days straight, you brought me an umbrella on the seventh.
with all my love,
♡steff
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