"Call the poliiiiiiiiice."

John,

Aren't you just excited about this part of your life? I am excited for you. I want all these good things for you, and I know that even if you don't get the specific things that I want for you, your life will still be full, and good, and happy.

I can still remember riding in the back seat of my mother's car, holding hands in the dark, and liking each other so much. We were so young, twelve or thirteen I think, so it was ,like, over fifty years ago, and I can't remember exactly what we said to each other or why we didn't ever "go together". But isn't it wonderful that we didn't? I am a firm believer that every choice you make, from what college to go to or what job to accept, down to where to stop for gas or where to buy your groceries, decides the path your life will travel. And I'm so happy and proud for the path your life has taken. So I've never regretted that I was never your girlfriend, because our lives are so blessed and it is partly because we were such good friends.

Dude, we've done a lot of stuff. We've bowled, we've played Dungeons and Dragons, we've played a LOT of different video games, we've talked on the phone until the absolute wee hours of the morning watching Ren and Stimpy marathons. We took several film classes together in college, and it made class so much more interesting and fun to sit next to you and laugh when other kids would try to see if they could fit their entire bodies into Millard's butt. We have spent a lot of time at bars and at Mason's running our mouths for hours and hours about music, movies, philosophy, politics, love, and life in general. I have actual video tape of you playing a red electric guitar over a tiny amp and singing Nirvana songs, John. You can just send $50 a month to my home address if you don't want those to get out to the general public. I also have video footage of you speaking with a speech impediment and me practically speaking with a speech impediment because that's how bad I am at a British accent, which involved our other friends being hobos, handicapped ballerinas, and drug dealers. WE HAVE A LOT GOING ON IN OUR HEADS, MY FRIEND, and it started at a young age. Don't ever forget that you have the capacity, which you use often, to be bizarre, and funny, and unabashed, and brilliant.

You have done so many good things, and you are such a person, you know? I am incredibly lucky to know you, and I'm even luckier to have known you for this long. A little over twenty years, John, we've been friends. I remember when you were a little boy and I was a little girl. It's a special thing to be able to share someone's whole life this way, this way that I'm getting to share yours with you. And I know it's not your whole life yet, but one day it will be, and I'll still be there. I feel humble to have known the good things that you've been given in life, and even more humbled to have known the bad things that you've endured, because really we don't just let everyone in, do we? And while our friendship has waxed and waned over the years, that doesn't really matter; the important thing is that today, if we want to, we can still call each other and talk about our lives, our days, our accomplishments and our failures.

John, what I'm telling you in my roundabout, physically-cannot-just-get-to-point-already way is congratulations. You have worked really hard to do this. You moved away from a lot of your friends and family and started a life in a city that was exotic, and dangerous, and unpredictable, and unfamiliar and I doubt that I could ever be that strong. Then, when the city fell apart and was nearly wiped clean from the face of this planet, when almost all of your possessions had been drowned in a sea of motor oil and sewage, when your family here was worried about you and concerned for your future, you went back. You went back to a city made up entirely of uncertainty, a city largely without most of the modern conveniences that we take for granted, a city that was increasingly being forgotten by the rest of the country. You went back and finished what you started, finished what you went there for in the first place. You should kiss any nervous problems that you've ever had goodbye, my friend, because no matter how it may feel sometimes you have overcome them.

I love you. Thank you for letting me be your friend, and for being mine.