We don't talk anymore so I can't reach out to thank you but I wish there was some way for me to express to you just how grateful I am to have had you in my life, even for such a short period of time.

You didn't just change the way I thought, you also changed everything I thought I knew and everything I believed. You taught me to think for myself and to stop taking things at face value. You presented me with ideas and then you allowed me the space I needed to think through the information, rather than forcing me to accept it.

You were the eye-opening realization I needed that the way I was taught was not the only way or perhaps even the best way. Rather than dismissing everything I believed, no matter how narrow-minded and misguided it may have been, you provided me with an environment in which I could express myself and you could express yourself and together we could figure things out.

You taught me to ask the question 'why?'. Before you, I'd always taken things at face value with a sort of blind faith that prevented me from thinking beyond the information that was presented to me. You wouldn't let me get away with that sort of blissful ignorance. Instead, you forced to look at everything I believed and wonder if they were ideologies I genuinely cared for or if they were simply other people's beliefs that had been forced onto me and I had been too easily influenced to question.

I don't know who I'd be without you but I know that I owe you at least a portion of my success. You taught me how to think critically, how to recognize and resist bullshit, and how to admit that sometimes I just don't have all the answers and that's perfectly okay. There's a possibility that I would've learned to think for myself on my own or maybe that someone else would've come along and taught me but there's an even scarier possibility that I would still be living in a state of misguided ignorance; thinking that I knew everything but never opening my eyes to another's worldview. I cannot even tell you how glad I am that that's not a reality I have to be faced with.

I'm so sorry we don't talk anymore. Situations that were out of our control drove us apart and I should've fought harder to keep you around. We were great together and if the person I was with you is the person I get to be for the rest of my life, that'd be fine by me. Even if you never see this and even if we never talk again, please know that I think of you often and there's not a day that goes by that I don't use the skills that you presented me with. I am forever indebted to you and I know that I wouldn't be the person I am today if it wasn't for you and your influence in my life. I hope you're doing well and I want you to know I wish you nothing but the absolute best.