I’ve never loved anyone as fiercely as I loved you. I’ve never been loved like that either.

We were two people brought together by the weirdest of circumstances. When people asked about how we met despite the nearly three-hour distance between us, I’d sometimes cite fate. I don’t even use words like “fate” and yet, there I was, claiming it as our foundation.

Two high school kids playing spin the bottle in the room above my garage as an excuse to kiss each other. Could there be a better beginning?

We spent eight years obsessed with knowing every single piece of each other. Your long nose. How drunk I sound when I’m tired. How we both are calmed by the sound of each other’s voice . . . how I’m still calmed by the sound of your voice. All details braided together into a single memory of “us."

Where do I put all of it now?

I studied this person for a good portion of my life, became an expert in the subject of “them” and somehow, I am expected to toss away that knowledge. I can’t take it with me, but I also can’t give it up.

And why should I? Why should I toss out the greatest happiness I’ve had? Why should I pretend that I didn’t spend eight years loving my best friend? What good could that repression possibly accomplish?

I don’t want to put these memories on a display. but I don’t want to hide them either.

In spite of it all, I’m actually really proud of us. We didn’t listen to what anyone said and though at certain points we maybe should’ve, we chose to continue loving one another. Instead of breaking apart, we’d often cling closer together. You were safety and comfort. I’ll always attach that feeling to you.

I don’t want to completely gloss over the past either. Yes, it did get sour at times. We both grew in different directions, as young adults tend to do. We both said things we’d now take back. We’ve both ignored calls and hung up in the middle of arguments. We did all of those things and worse.

Still, I wish I got to know the person you became. I wish you got to know the person I am now. Instead, we fumbled through the past couple of years trying to recreate the people we were when we first met, which never works.

I don’t want to dwell on regret, though, this letter is one of happiness and growth because I am happy and I have grown . . . I know you have too.

I am thankful for the first date we had at Denny’s where I hit my eye with a mascara wand and had to hold it the entire time, the midnight trips to 7/11 in our pajamas, for weekends at your house where we laid in your basement making out for hours, for learning about your town and you learning about mine, for every fight that made me grow as a person, for every I love you both said and received, for the opportunity to fall so deeply in love with someone that all I can see is them. Thank you for all of that.

You’ve filled me with a joy I couldn’t contain and that fire will continue to burn somewhere inside of me. I don’t ever want to put it out. Thank you for being my first love. Thank you for helping me to know what it means to love.

I want to end this with a quote from one of my favorite movies: “It doesn’t have to last forever to be perfect.”

Despite the worst of us, we were perfect.

Thank you.