For V

There is a certain way that some people can know you, because they have seen you change. There are certain people in my life, not many, just a very few that know me in this way. I just got off the phone with one of them. I spent the afternoon on my patio in California sipping ice tea, her worlds away in her apartment in Indianapolis. Separate time zones, separate lives for years and years now. Yet, still I feel more myself than ever hearing her laugh on the other end of the line. Life keeps taking us in these unforeseeable directions landing us in places and becoming people we always hoped we would be. Because when she says, "I am what I wanted to be," I like no one else in her world can understand the truth of that statement. Yes my little star light you have become exactly who you have wanted to be since we were in the fourth grade, sitting in your bedroom, and doing our hair in your bathroom. I have always admired her sense of direction. She taught me what direction was. She taught me to dream and to write and to be who I wanted to be, one day. Catching up is a funny thing, the things you choose to say and what becomes relevant. The parts of our lives we want to share, the things we are still afraid of, the complete and utter lack of purpose I have at the moment. She sees in my sentences the same girl I always have been, pointing out my nature in a way I don't see anyone around me doing these days. She knows me in a way that someone can only know you if they have seen you change, watched you grow, held your hand at funerals, picked up several of your broken hearts, and still phone you fifteen years later on Friday afternoon just to see what's new.