Happy Birthday!
This writing is dedicated to keep the little and precious memories we have, to remember for a long time and not taking this for granted.
When I first knew you several years back, I always felt you were an interesting person to be around. Meticulous, smart, arranged, and all the model student style from you just dazzled me and successfully caught my attention. I (and all of our friends) depend on you a lot for lecture materials, to remember the course deadline, and to ask questions.
I didn’t really remember when we became quite close to casually talk to each other. After that, I recognized that you were cute to tease, and I enjoyed it a lot. But otherwise, we didn’t really talk much unless needed.
Then at a certain point, we get closer to share each other personal concerns. At that time, I realized that entering your personal bubble means I have to deal with everything inside the bubble. I started to recognize your anxiety, stress, and insecurity. I had to face your cold response whenever you have bad moods and sometimes get hurt over it.
In the beginning, I thought this is as an ill-fated friendship. There is nothing good coming from it. Particularly when I personally see you going through hardship and struggle. I can see your amazing potential, sometimes it saddened me having to see you going through failure more and more.
We also have different ways to solve problems and understand life. Most of the time, you can’t understand my concerns and shove it back in my face saying that it’s my problem for thinking too much. I can see we have different ways to present ourselves and have polarized personality as well. We just can’t connect emotionally as much as I do with my other friends.
My friends even thought that you were not worth keeping around as a close friend. “Just let it go. You are no match for him. Both of you have totally different personalities. You won’t be able to understand each other.”
What she said really struck me. Whenever I get hurt, the thought of letting you go, and give up this friendship come to my mind. There is too much hassle, and I don’t really see the benefits of it.
I am a cold person, and I am an expert in pushing people away (at least from my experiences). Though I have a lot of reasons to push you away, it seems that I am not able to do so.
I hate to confront people and prefer to keep the problems to myself. Most of the time, when I have problems with other friends, they recognized it as well and initiated the conversation to solve it. But it didn’t apply for us, it seems that only me seeing this as a problem. Sometimes, it made me wonder whether I was the reason why this problem happens.
It took me a long time to muster up my courage, to construct a logical and neutral explanation on the problem. I was actually terrified to speak up my mind. I don’t know where the confidence comes from, I decided to learn to say it aloud with you. If it doesn’t work, I am determined to give up on this.
I can see these kind of conversations are unfamiliar for you, so I actually expect there will be some resistances in the discussion. Initially, I have a certain expectation on your response, that it will not be going well, and I was prepared to get disappointed. Surprisingly, you listened to it quite well.
Over the last two years, whenever we had these difficult conversations, I can see you grow over it. Initially, it was hard to engage you in the discussion, but eventually, you started to adapt and open up. I was surprised and delighted that we can have a meaningful conversation now.
I started to notice the slight changes in our relationship dynamics as well.
You are willing to give me space whenever needed, giving me emotional support instead of a very cold-logical response like how you did back then, and learning to see problems from my perspective. I really like how you can always response my unstable feeling calmly, and not let it ruin our relationship. I am always grateful for that.
All these times, all my close friends are very similar to me, and we are each other comfort zones. From you, I get to know how to befriend someone totally different, and still become a comfort zone. I learn to speak up my mind, to confront other people, and to appreciate the differences we have. You are now a very precious friend to me. We grow a lot through this. I am proud I didn’t give up back then, and I am proud of your effort to make this work too.
Over the last two years, you’ve been going through so many things that made you doubt your potential. But I want you to know, that I believe in you. I know you can make through anything the world throw in your face in the future. Please remember, even when you feel like you are stuck in a certain aspect, know that you grow a lot in other aspects.
Thank you for showing me how to have healthy and respectful boundaries in a relationship. I hope you can always grow to be a better person every single day, and granted a meaningful life all the way through. May universe provides you with happiness in every step you take.
Though you may not feel it, there are so many people (even my friends) who believe in you and cheers for you, so you should too and don’t give up no matter how hard it seems to be now. I hope you will always be reminded that you are adorable and not alone in this world!
Thank you for bearing with me all these times. Hope we can have a happy friendship for many years to come and grow together!