As the sky transforms from hues of fuschia, auburn, and tuscany yellow to a vibrant baby blue, and the sun gradually rises from the horizon line, my day progresses from a luminant gold to a cloud of crimson and grey.

More and more complications pile up like a heap of dirty laundry—just more work for me to deal with, I suppose. It’s 3:15 p.m. I am exhausted. My head is pounding. I have hours of homework ahead of me. I’ve got dance practice in the evening. All I long for is my head resting peacefully on one pillow, and my right arm tightly wrapped around the other. 

It is when the entire world feels like it is spinning around me at a million miles per hour with no end in sight that you come in. My pet, my dog, my furry friend, Blue. You, my friend, will always be here.

Every afternoon, I wrestle my key into the brown door leading into my garage. Every afternoon, I open the doors that bring me into the kitchen, listening to the familiar squeaking of the storm door and the clicking of the wooden one. Every afternoon, I walk into my house, and I see my dog’s head peeking up through the opening in the wall between our kitchen and family room. He waits patiently, keeping his large eyes plastered on me as I put down my backpack and keys. I yell out his name, and he leaps from the couch and sprints towards me. His little paws on the hard-wood floor create a constant rhythm. He jumps up and down, and wags his tail and shows me affection with kisses. 

You being the first thing I see when I get home releases all the weight from my shoulders, and I feel one thousand pounds lighter. 

It is later in the evening. I am mindlessly doing my homework while getting distracted every five minutes either from my wandering mind, a text message, or my favorite song playing on my Alexa. I pause my homework once more after hearing a scratching at my door, sounding much like the tapping of Blue’s little paws running across the kitchen floor.

I open my bedroom door to see him there, frantically, wagging his tail with one of his toys—normally his white chicken—laying in front of him. I quickly attempt to snatch the chicken from him, but he is too quick. Blue grabs his toy in his mouth and quickly trots away; we like to call this game “keep away.” We play for a long time; I get a break from homework while he gets all of his nighttime energy out of his system. 

Playing with you in the evening is like a breath of fresh air, like an endless supply of smiles.

I wish that we could stay in this routine forever. I wish I could always see him at 3:15 p.m. and play “keep away” in the evenings. But sadly, things change. In just a couple of years, I will be whisked away to an unknown world with unknown faces and unknown places. I won’t be wrestling with the door every afternoon and seeing his face peeking through the window. I won’t play “keep away” with his big chicken. I won’t get to feel him curled up by my side while I sleep and chase him around the couch in the morning. 

My world continues to move faster and faster with no end in sight. Everything in front of and behind me, to the left and to the right of me is a total blur. I feel like I am spinning and spinning and getting dizzier and dizzier. I don’t know where I am going, and I don’t know where I will end up.

But you, my friend, will always be here.