Dear Vegas,

I'm in Nashville, sitting on the couch of my new apartment with a true smile on my face, but my heart is still beating for you. As I go about my days I see all of the parts of myself that have been molded by you, so I want to take this moment to thank you for everything you have done for me.

Thank you for the cotton candy sunsets and the way the sky turns into a purple snow globe in my neighborhood at night. Thank you for the most beautiful skyline and places like Far Hills, where my friends and I get to watch the splendor of the sun going down and The Strip lighting up so it looks like it’s been covered in glitter.

Thank you for the lack of rain, because we all know none of us Las Vegans truly know how to drive in any sort of rain. Thank you for putting our streets on a grid, because without it I wouldn't know how to get anywhere ever. Thank you for bringing me a best friend who loves you as much as I do and for having a street/hill that we got to speed down like maniacs, because we will have that memory forever.

Thank you for teaching me patience. Thank you for teaching me what true happiness feels like, and how to find it anywhere I go. Thank you for inspiring me to do what I love, and for letting me do it with you.

Lastly, thank you for housing the people who call you home too, because they look and feel like love to me — a love I am unable to express.

If you add all of the tears I have shed in the car on the way to McCarran Airport, the beats of my heart when it speeds up as I talk about you, and the songs I have written for the landscape that raised me, it still doesn't amount to the love I feel for you. I can only hope that you will continue to love me back as beautifully as you have for the past nineteen years.

Love, Ava

p.s. thank you for the warm, dry weather —I will be dreaming about it until I see you again.