63 To Go: I Miss My Mudda...

Your letters are some of my favorites. I'm obsessed with them. Because you sound like you. Like you're sitting next to me pouring out your guts and blabbing my ear off. I love it. I miss it. I miss your voice. I miss the way you smell like clean stuff and blush. And I miss the way you laugh at everything like laughing is your favorite thing to do so you'll do it all the time -- any time you can. I miss the way your hair is young and soft, always beautiful and always a recipient of my envy. And I miss you at night when you smell of make-up remover and comfort, in your cottons and your pulled back hair. I miss the way you stand at the kitchen counter with your leg bent so your foot can perch on your knee, eating your crackers and butter and sipping your coffee with hot chocolate mix or your tea with condensed (con-densed) milk. I miss your addiction to Dancing with the Stars ("Dancing," as you call it), even though you turn it up way too loud. And I miss the way you come, sometimes, into my room and sit on my bed and look around my room, at my internals, my guts splattered on my walls. The way you hold your coffee mug in your hands, sitting at the edge of my bed. And my stomach releases some excited chemical when I hear the bed creak beneath you while I'm in my bathroom washing my face -- like it's an honor to have you sitting there, in my room, to talk to me. It is an honor. I miss coming into your room to flutter my arms and stand up to deliver an impassioned speech to you, my captive and wisely smiling audience. I miss your text messages while I'm away: "R u coming to dinner? I cooked a good one!!!!!!" or something casual, a simple "Whats up?" just because you like to be in my life, to be my best friend, to know what's going on.

My life is growing up -- and it's taking me with it, too. The contrast between Brittany's life and mine is stark now. Her problems are ones I've left behind, little bits to laugh at from a distance. To Remember The Days When. The world is bigger now, it grows with me. Every day, adulthood visits me and gives me another token: This one, she says, is yours now. And the next day, again, she'll bring another to give to me. Little pieces of my life that once were in someone else's care but now are coming into mine.

And what were dreams are now clear visions -- things not so far and distant as they were. Fruits in the trees that I need only learn to climb in order to pluck from. It's lush and full, sweet and ripe. When I reach your branch, I'll make you climb to the next one, the next one, the next one with me.

I like to be yours.

The coalition based on mutual need --

a bilateral agreement of loyalty and friendship, an alliance --

something exclusive and beautiful,

something only we have,

something only we can have.

I want to be great like you --

Gentle yellow petals

that love to love --

to be a Shining Morning Face,

an ensconcing place,

something Sweet-Smelling

and thankful for opportunities

to be the thing that Brightens A Day --

To be magical like you --

someone small and modest in your salience,

strong in your weakness --

A face that beams like a gentler Sun.

The way you have loved is your

God-given purpose --

a purpose that has borne in us Ours:

Little Bees to do your pollination,

to spread the Loving Blooming Thing,

to make sweet honey

from your warm affection --

To be the complement of you --

My Best and Favorite Thing --

delivering by way of Wings

the Loving Blooming Thing.