I am a writer, and words are in my blood. I’ve never had trouble finding them, until I sat down to try to find the words to adequately express how grateful I am for you. It’s hard, but I’m going to try my best.
I came to college with no idea what to expect. Everything was fuzzy and unclear, at the beginning. Looking back now, I’m grateful for the struggle, for the random happenstances that led me to you. It’s incredible to think that just a year ago, we lived across the country, hell, across the world, from each other, and now, by some miracle, by some beautiful and glorious twist of fate, we are here. We are together. And together has never felt so good.
I didn’t honestly believe that people like me existed in this world. I had it ingrained in my head that I didn’t and couldn’t belong anywhere. I believed that I was destined to marinate in loneliness forever, as I had done for the first eighteen years of my life. My high school friends were wonderful, but most of them just didn’t get me. So I assumed that no one could possibly ever get me. Deep down, I think I honestly thought myself to be unlovable.
And then. You. Us. The nights we spent driving around, blaring music so loud that we couldn’t hear our own thoughts (and we liked it that way), this entire city blossoming in the palms of our hands. The mornings we spent slumped over pancakes in the dining hall, talking about how stressed we were but watching that stress dissolve the longer we shared it. The conversations about life and death and all of the mess in between, on the laundry machines, on benches in the middle of campus, on the soccer fields. That’s the thing about us. Our minds and souls sync up so well that we can talk about anything, anywhere. Or we can not. We can just be together. I don’t think I ever realized how valuable the mere presence of other people was until I came to college. Now, we drive together and eat together and sleep together and do everything under the sun together and this, this is the first time in my life that I’ve truly relished in an authentic community. I think it is genuinely the source of most of my joy.
I don’t know how I’m going to leave you this summer. I’m going to miss you with every fiber in my being. I’m going to give you a little piece of my heart and ask you to guard it safely; you’ve had it since the start, and now, it’s yours forever.
You. My best friends. My stars and my sun and my cloudy, rainy days. The ones who taught me that I am worthy of love and acceptance and every good thing. The souls who love me so well that I forget what it’s like to feel alone.
I can now say with certainty that college is the best thing that ever happened to me, because it is here that I met you, here that our worlds somehow aligned and we somehow became connected. If I could only articulate how much you mean to me, I would never shut up. But I can’t. So all I’ll say is, thank you. I’ll see you soon. And I’ll keep on loving you, every moment in between.