If every word you read has meaning, then every word that I write that you read has meaning.
Maybe it’s because you’ve read it that it has meaning. Or maybe it’s that I wrote it for you, for others, with you, and with others, that it has meaning.
The Central Trend has pushed me to become a writer who thinks beyond her own self, a writer who thinks of the world around her. And it’s easy for me to say that with the people I’ve met on staff, I’ve found yet another key to happiness. I think this one is silver. It’s pretty, unexpected, and underrated.
And before I start writing nonsense again, I have to take at least a few lines to dedicate to the ending of the year. To the self that started this year—yes, there were some new characters, and some scenes you would never have expected. But, no, this isn’t the finale. It’s just the beginning.
I don’t want to forget this year. I don’t want to forget any of these years. I don’t want to forget how we cried laughing, making tissue bows, and sending oranges on trips up the elevator. I don’t want to forget how, on the first day we were sat next to each other in math, we shredded our paper into confetti giggling way too much that the next day, you were moved across the room from me (yes, it was worth it). I don’t want to forget how we sat in the back of the bus together every day and came up with so many inside jokes that I can’t even remember them all now.
I don’t want to forget the time we ran through the rain together talking about books we like and books we can’t stand and people we like and people we can’t stand and “who’s most likely to’s” and “would you rather’s”—take a number two at the local daycare or brave the last two miles. I don’t want to forget how you would still choose to run with me, even when you were faster than me. I don’t want to forget how you would remember my passions and dreams and how you would continue to encourage and wish for me, not once, but again and again.
I don’t want to forget the first time I met you and knew I wanted to be your friend because we had the same humor, and I could tease you for weirdness and you would tease me for mine. I don’t want to forget the time when I realized that whatever would happen, we would stay friends. I don’t want to forget the time when I started to miss you even though we haven’t said goodbye yet.
The truth is I don’t want to forget any of our time together. The truth is I don’t want to forget you at all.
If this is the last time I write, if this is the last truth I share, this truth is final. The truth is that you, my friends, were the highlights of these years.
