Let it go

How do you let go of a friendship that once invigorated you but no longer feeds you?

Do you try to hold on?

Should you?

A complete life.

And so the year is coming to an end, soon, and as if on cue, a scheduled recurring habit, I always feel a tinge of nostalgia. 

These last few years have been some of the best ones of my life, and in spite of my social circles shrinking from year to year, and my days becoming less complicated, I have never felt more full, more whole. 

2014 was the culmination of so many dreams come true. He carried me through the door into our first home together. I walked across the graduation stage as they called my name. I wore a crown of flowers in my hair and danced with childhood friends until I could no longer feel my body, just the music and laughter. 

There are days where I wish I could store every single memory to adore them, over and over again. And yet I know their beauty resides in the moment, in the being, that is fleeting, evading.  

It'll always feel like the first Christmas

Our first Christmas together, five years ago, he had built for me a small nightstand, white in color, imperfect in its construction, an English version of Le Petit Prince carefully stacked between other titles while my cousins gifted me the original version, in French, that same year. 

I have had four different addresses recorded to my name since then and gasped out loud at his suggestion of donating the item, made with love from his two hands, when we moved in our new home the first week of this soon-to-be past year. 

Hands that continue to build and fix and make this home more his and mine and ours together. That is his love language to me while I am still trying to find out my own for him. 

And while we sat there, buried in blankets with no heat in the house, him caressing me while I grasped on to a vintage book he managed to track down for me, both of us breathing quietly, staring at the Christmas lights illuminating our faces and bodies across the living room, he said things to me that made the illusion of time between then and now oscillate between five hours and five decades all at once. 

All is well because we understand each other. All is well because we have each other.

Day 4 - Your sibling (or closest relative)

Dear Brothers,

There are three of you so to be fair, I won't play favorites. At least openly. Heh.

Thanksgiving just passed and while I was a terrible daughter, not calling our father to wish him happy birthday until four days later, I'm not half as bad of a sister if I told you I am thankful for each of you and love you.

All this to say: It's kind of comical, yet totally logical, for me to realize that I feel -- that I am -- so much closer to each of you than to our own parents, combined.

We've had our disagreements and arguments, but we've always been in the same boat -- whether it was sailing or sinking, we taught each other to swim and held on to each other when we drowned. We saved each other and continue to do so -- through tears, through laughter, throughout the years, together.

And while I've frequently found myself envying other people's relationships with their mothers or fathers, I've never once wished for, nor thought about having, any other brothers but you.

(Except, of course, having a sister. But that doesn't count.)

I'm glad that I have been the kind of sibling you can turn to in your times of sadness as much as your times of happiness.

If I don't become a mother in this lifetime, I'll still die smiling, holding on to all of our memories together as sister and brothers.

The last of it.

My birthday is a little over a week from today.

This upcoming year will be the last of my 20s.

It was tough at times. Especially in the beginning. 

But I am excited. To be alive; to be 29, soon.