you were fourteen years old when I met you. tomorrow, you turn twenty. all of my memories of you have combined to formulate into something so beautiful. I could never regret it or wish they weren’t mine. thank you for being such an enormous part of my journey in this lifetime so far. I’d never, ever, ever forgive myself if I lost sight of these moments, (and if I don’t put and keep them here tonight, I don’t know where they’ll end up.)

six years, and I am finally building up the courage and the strength to let you go.

seventh grade meant walking around town in the middle of the night alongside you and your ridiculous KISS pajama pants for the first time, letting you hold my hand because I didn’t expect anything further, seventeen missed calls the next day, a long skateboard ride to my house because you were impatient and persistent and perfect. first kiss(es) behind the publix loading dock. I was wearing green and you- probably something AC/DC. strawberry flavored cigars, empty beer bottles on the back porch, kissing in the rain, marking our initials on the picket fence with ashes, motley crue and pink floyd and your shaggy brown mop of hair (along with mine.) remember that time I rode on the back of your skateboard through k-mart so that you could buy my little brother a video game for his birthday? or that really windy day at the beach where we just sat at the picnic table? it isn’t there anymore. I think that I was destined for a life of bravery when I met you; how we both knew you were moving away from the start but I let myself love you anyway, how mary left her own damn 13th birthday party to walk across town at two in the morning with me just so I could kiss you on the driveway and then turn right back around. how peyton had to pull me away from the fence the night you left and held me as I cried and cried and cried until my mom came to get me at 4 in the morning, how I overheard her and dad talking about how “this wasn’t normal.” remember how you called me from the u-haul that last morning, wanting me to meet you at the gas station on your way out but it was too hard? everything was too hard.

eleventh grade meant answering your phone call in the bowling alley to find out that I’d be seeing you in a week, for the first time in four years, because you’d saved up all your money to drive twelve hours for the sake of me alone. watching you pull up to my driveway and running full forced into your arms, driving around town to all of our favorite places because it was our first time together since we’d both gotten our licenses, that disgusting banana milkshake from checkers that you loved so much, the perfect CD your sister made for us, giving you a tour of the high school that would have been yours. do you remember when we sat on the beach that wednesday night? we were the only ones out there and the sky was so big and nothing else mattered. how I didn’t let you kiss me until you dropped me off that night because I was so fucking cautious and broken (and these things haven’t changed.) how that morning you came over, hungover, and my mom greeted you with “crazy night, eh?” she fucking adores you, she really does. that day you wore a navy shirt and those comfy moccasins when we pulled over on your way to my house because your chest was killing you; how your brokenness developed a murmur during the move. picking my brother up from baseball practice, watching him freak out through the rearview mirror when he noticed you were holding my hand, the fact that you’d lay in bed with me until I fell asleep each night and then you’d go to the living room (even though you didn’t have to) because you knew it’d make my parents happy. remember that morning you woke me up at 5am and I told you to leave without making things a big deal because I didn’t have the strength to re-live a prolonged goodbye? how you left me that gift on my chair and then didn’t tell me until you were gone? how you were gone?

I wrote you a letter for your eighteenth birthday. ten months later, I received one from you, on mine. 

christmas break after my first semester of college meant trembling with fear when I received my flight information via email, not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into when I agreed to let your mother buy my plane ticket as your christmas present because it’s all that you wanted. it meant packing up everything I owned that would keep me warm, stepping onto that flight from tampa to nasvhille with an open and completely unsure mind, vowing to be fearless and open and free. tennessee was eerie and cold and I never felt like I was sitting comfortably. your hands didn’t feel the same, and we didn’t laugh like we used to. you weren’t sober, you didn’t give me the parts of you that I so longed for. but there were those beautiful moments where you got defensive in the grocery store when that boy looked at me, and how all of your family on your dad’s side knew every detail of my life because of you. cinnamon toast crunch every morning sweet tea’s every night because you know they’re my favorites. and there was that day in downtown franklin when we walked through the antique shops and hiked up the mountain in pinkerton, walked down the train tracks to the creek where that lady took pictures of us… people are always taking pictures of us. drove to your cousin’s apartment in nashville that overlooked the skyline, hopped the fence so we could walk along the river, snuck into the renaissance hotel and took the elevator to the 25th floor so we could see the city, drove up to that peak and star-gazed. remember when you caught me crying in the back of the pizza joint where you work because I realized things just didn’t feel the same anymore? or how your sister wanted us to go to steak and shake but you were too stoned to care so you went to sleep? remember when I made you cry on that very last night and you swore things could have been different? when we drove through the mountains the next morning and things seemed almost okay, but it was too late? how you gave me the ring when we got to the airport (and how I still wear the damn thing everyday and I can’t bring myself to change that just yet.) remember when I kissed you goodbye and walked through security without turning back?

b, you’ve taught me to be fearless. you’ve taught me what it means to be persistent, to be fought for, to be let down, to grow and to most importantly, let myself love. thank you for holding me for the past six years of my existence. thank you for literally not giving up, even today. I have cared for you (and allowed you to care for me) more than I could have ever anticipated this early on in life. I really do love you, but it is time for me to let you go. happy birthday, deogi. you’ve done more for me than I could ever hope to do for another.