Goodbyes

yup, that's us in third grade.

the three in the middle row are Brandon, Jason and Stephen, my Best friends.

oh yeah and there's me. 

Double bubble shirt? check. slicked back ponytail? check. nasty old jean jacket, super faded BYU track suit/windbreaker pants? check. socks with sandals? naturally. Man, I had swag even then! also notice that my lips are firmly pursed together. no way in heck i was gonna show off both snaggle teeth.

we're 18 and just as crazy as we were in Kindergarten. I love you.

Hey Stephen. You were always the genius. It only makes sense that you're going to UC Irvine.

all those other girls, well they're beautiful, but would they write a song for you?

Haha.

Tswift.

nine years later and you're still the smartest, funniest blackest whitest Mexican i know.

If there was ever anyone else who loves Taylor Swift and Harry Potter as much as i do, It's you, dawg.

I love you.

you always were very particular about your hair, J. 

I had the biggest crush on you until we were twelve years old but you didn't let that bother you at all. nope. still my best pal through thick and thin. Even if we did awkwardly try not to stand next to each other. wouldn't want anyone thinking anything...right? haha.

You were the first in everything with us four. first to have a girlfriend, first to break a heart, first to speak up any time you felt cheated, first to notice that i pierced my ears or that my eyebrow scar was showing. And now, first to leave for college! we'll be across the country. a thousand miles away from each other. But i know you'll never be too far to talk. or too far to care. or too far to freak out about the boys in my life.

I Love You.

thirteen years later?

they're still my best friends.

they're still everything to me.

I can't even...

I couldn't even say goodbye tonight. Jason kept reminding me that He'll come home for Christmas.

But nothing's ever the same, is it?

I mean, once you grow up, everyone changes, everything is different. Priorities change. right?

I don't that to happen.

I don't wanna grow up.

I want to be Peter Pan and stay young forever, okay?...

In reality i just didn't want to say goodbye to Jason tonight because I knew it was the first official step into the next part of my life. I knew, holding his un-injured hand out the window as he drove away that things will never be the same as they were in High school, or as they are now. 

And that sucks.

And i could say that we won't change. that we'll always be close.

Which i hope with everything in me is true, because i can't imagine my future without them in it.

But when it comes down to it, we all have to grow up eventually.

Me leaving these boys has to happen.

we all have to move on and start new and leave all this behind.

Right?...

Or can we do like i dream about. all move back to Madera, Them with their adorable wives and me with my hunk of a husband and we'll all live right here in country club and all our kids will go to the same schools we went to and be best friends just like us. and their names will be Albus and Katniss and Leia and Frodo. we'll watch Jason on TV in the big leagues, Brandon will build our houses and Stephen will tend to all the sickness and do whatever genius doctor braniacs do. and I'll teach their kids down the street at Berenda and we'll be best friends until we're old farts sitting on the front porch in rocking chairs, turning up our hearing aids and still laughing about chinchillas and Brandon and Jason will ramble about baseball, and Stephen and I will complain about the remakes of our favorite Sci-fi movies and how Rupert Grint will always be the real Ron.


I like that second option a lot better than the first...

I love you three.

always.