Life is intense.  A friend of mine wants to be a lion.  She wants to be ferocious.  She wants to be beautiful.  She wants to be loved.  The thing that she never seems to see is that she is love, she is beauty, she is ferocity, she is a lioness.  Sometimes when I see the sparkle in her eyes, and the smile on her face, I am perplexed by the fact that any one person could be so encompassing.

I hope that I, in some abstract way, am all of the things that I want to be, but don’t think that I am.  I hope that in some way, when a certain someone thinks of me, I too perplex.

I have applied to Warren Wilson College.  I am both excited and terrified of by the fact that I will so soon be in college.  I am so terrifically excited by WWC; the opportunities it presents, the culture it grows, the ideas it fosters.  I am not so excited about the fact that a certain friend of mine will be half a universe away from me, in a place where i cannot save her, I cannot help her, I cannot provide for her, I cannot protect her, and I cannot keep her safe from all the monsters hiding in the shadows.  I have a feeling that I will not say goodbye to her, in hopes that it is not a goodbye, but merely an extended pause in our conversation.

There is a certain sense of sadness within your identity, which you have had since we met, that I am particularly fond of.  Yet, no matter how much I would love to keep you forever the same, I would prefer to have you happy.  I would much rather hear a free bird singing, from a distance, than see it sing, inside a cage.