To you, to the person that taught me the importance of love,

I thank you, wholeheartedly for every moment we spent together. When we were fighting or laughing or sharing those secrets that no one else really knows about. I thank you for that. I thank you for staying up late to talk to me, for telling me I was beautiful and for teaching me what it felt like to be loved.

I look at you now, and I hardly recognize you. The small creases beside your eyes, the way your hold your pencil and how you throw your head back when you laugh. Parts of me miss you dearly, miss our conversations, inside jokes and the way you made me feel. I miss your kind heart and beautiful outlook on life, regardless of struggle in the past. I miss admiring your strength and courage.

But I don't miss the desire to please you, I don't miss your views on politics or favorite football teams. I don't miss feeling like I needed you more than you needed me. I don't miss feeling trapped or stuck in place. I hardly miss your tone of voice when you got defensive, reminding you that I have feelings and telling you about my past and you just nodding and not truly paying attention.

There are thousands of reasons we are no longer in each others lives, some of them are my fault, others are yours. Some reasons are the people we love and their views on one another. I cannot change the past, I cannot change the way you look at me now or how you feel when you are reminded of me. I cannot tell you that I still care about you very very much.

I'm not upset, I'm hardly emotional. But your voice has faded from my memory, pieces of you no longer exist in my car or in my messages and it feels slightly empty where you use to be. What terrifies me the most though, is when I wont feel that emptiness anymore. I won't think of you when SNL comes on or when I buy the wrong kind of mac and cheese. It kinda hurts.

I hope there comes a time in my life, later on, maybe ten years down the road and I see you. Maybe you're with your kids, or with an old friend, or you're just alone. Visiting the old town you called home for awhile. After high school you got the hell out, escaped from your ghosts and the darkness that seemed to find you in every corner. Started new. You look well, you grew your hair out longer, and your eyes seem brighter with joy. We stop and talk, you tell me about your loved one and how your family is, you ask about my parents and I tell you about their voyages across the world. The pauses in conversation are filled with fond memories, and a few bad ones. We exchange smiles and tell one another it was nice to see the other, and to tell everyone they said hi. We walk our separate ways into are separate lives in separate worlds. But for a moment, just a moment, we were reminded of that life we shared together. That blip in our lives where we loved deeper and were happier than ever before. And because of that, we are so much happier than we could have ever been if we had stayed in each others lives.

I'll tell my kids about you, about this extraordinary person that walked into my life on a rainy Tuesday in the quiet of December. I will tell them of our laughter and our friendship, I will tell them how we were exactly the same while being completely different.

So thank you. Thank you for your love and friendship, that I'm sure I wouldn't be where I am today without. I thank you for loving me, in any form, however deeply. I thank you for reminding me that I needed to fix myself, that no one could do it for me. And thank you for letting go of me, for letting the world take me away. Even if you hate me, or wish to never see me again. I wish you well, because I remember those times when it seemed like there were only us two in this world. And to me at least, that meant something special.