I met up with my dearest and oldest friend last month, and today, I want to write about her.

She and I first met as coworkers when I started working as a new graduate. We worked in the secretarial section of a cultural organization in Tokyo. I have ADHD, so it was a terrible mistake that they assigned me to such a role — I'm really bad at multitasking and managing schedules, especially other people's! On top of that, I knew nothing about the professional world. I made countless mistakes, like double-booking appointments, failing to notice when a guest had arrived, forgetting to prepare my boss’s passport, and so on. She was a temporary employee, but of course she was more experienced than I was and very skilled as a secretary. Whenever possible, she would fix my mistakes, and when she couldn’t, she would just comfort me.

It didn't take long for us to start hanging out in our free time, even though we had quite different tastes in pretty much everything. She told me she was dating a guy from Toyama. At first, I wasn't that surprised because Toyama Prefecture is fairly large. However, as the conversation progressed, I was very surprised to learn that her boyfriend's childhood home was extremely close to mine, only about a 10-minute walk away. He and I even went to the same elementary school, and his brother was a classmate of my sister's.

After working together about a year and a half, she moved to Toyama and married him. For the next 17 years or so, we lived far apart but stayed in touch and occasionally met up. Ever since I moved to Toyama in 2012, we've started hanging out frequently again. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013, she was the only friend I had living nearby. She was working as an insurance agent at that time and was knowledgeable about medical matters. Following her advice, I transferred to a hospital that had a better reputation, which was a really good decision, thinking about it now.

During my long and difficult treatment, she would patiently listen to me and encourage me in subtle ways. My son stopped going to school because he was deeply affected by my illness. He was going through his own struggles, but she always called him a good kid and cared about him. She herself doesn't have any kids, but she has a lot of friends from all walks of life — young, old, rich, poor, single, married, with and without kids. She is such a kind and warm-hearted person, but it's funny that she comes off as cool, even a bit sharp.

When I met up with her last month, I told her I'm planning on moving to Tokyo this year. She grinned and said, "Wow, finally!" and added "I'll miss you, but it's going to be fun for you!" I’d been feeling a bit down about the move because I now have so many emotional ties to Toyama, including her. I was also anxious about the new environment, yet her words lifted my spirits. Who knows what will happen in Tokyo, but I'm sure it'll be fun because she said so.