a list of bests.

1. reading the truth about forever together out loud in the horse stables outside mission park.
2. playing hooky from church and setting up a barbie-scale ship (or hospital, or city) in the living room instead.
3. "running away" with 50cent cans of crush from the soda machine at church.
4. meeting adam at the barker swings and then having cappuccinos at denny's as soon as you approved him.
5. going to galaxy grind/ taco time/ the library after school and talking for hours.
6. staying up late at night telling each other survival/shipwreck/runaway stories.
7. playing in the abandoned fifth avenue greenhouse in the winter--it was a fort, a haunted house, a cabin.
8. straightening each others' hair and talking about our (my!) yahoo messenger lovers.
9. baking cookies together.. or rather, watching you bake cookies while i ate and talked.
10. driving to couer d'alene together after i got my license, and then driving back late in the evening and seeing spokane turn beautiful in the dark.
11. vegan cheesecake from the south hill restaurant, then dollar movies at the garland.
12. candlelit winter picnic at manito park with all the kids.
13. discovering portland together after the apartment became my own.
14. watching hastings movie rentals with you and sue in my room, on greg's big flatscreen monitor (and eating carrots and hummus, goldfish, and yoke's chocolate chip cookies).
15. reading romance novels in the sunroom when mom wasn't looking.
16.  watching definitely, maybe, eating donuts by the centennial trail, and celebrating life the last february i spent at home.
17. hitting up gas stations for hot cocoa or tea with you and sue and searching for adventures on late tuesday nights after choir practice was over.
18. camping together in the middle of winter at the lake with faulty locks, warm beer, and a fizzy fire--and incredible chili, which you made (of course).
19. watching you graduate--and then, so quickly afterward, watching (hardly helping) as you moved into your college dorm.

you have to understand, i love you. so much.
you were always my opposite--thoughtful where i was brash, considerate where i was selfish, kind and forgiving where i was mean and vengeful. you balanced me, somehow, and drained the poison out of me. i owe you.

xoxo forever, and happy 19th birthday. ♥