24.

Today is your 24th birthday.

We should be heading out for food and making laugh-cry jokes about getting older and not having even any small parts of our lives together. You'd literally double over in your chair and silent laugh while I ate too much and we'd remember the time I stomped cake into your carpet at your eighth birthday party. Your mum was so mad.

But I'm in Thailand, trying to keep busy and remember you at the same time. And you're in heaven.

We planned our lives together, you and I. You were going to have a whole bunch of kids, some would marry mine, the others would annoy them. You joked about how my big behind would come in handy for my kids to sit on.

You are as much a part of me now as you were then. It looks a whole lot different than we imagined it would, but I carry you with me every day. At first, you were heavy. Too heavy to get out of bed. Too heavy to get dressed. And that was ok for a while, I needed to feel the full weight of losing you first. I needed to figure out what it looked like to hold fifteen years worth of memories instead of watching them walk beside me and grow older. Slowly but surely, you became lighter to carry. Full of the things we'd always laughed about. Of the Fridays we hopped around fast food joints having loud arguments in different accents, of the morning's when my Dad would drop us off at Kindergarten and push us in the big blue swing. I started to live again because I loved you, little by little I came back. I came to terms with the tension of joy and heartbreak sitting right next to one another. I resolved to always love as fully as I'd been able to love you when we met. Three year olds know how to love people best.

Now, I make jokes that make people feel uncomfortable about my dead best friend. I think you'd laugh at those, you always were a fan of somewhat awkward humour. I love it when I get to talk about you. I'm so proud of your life. I like to think you'd be proud of me too.

On your 24th birthday, I ate what I wanted because I thought you'd tell me to. I looked through my favourite pictures of us. I saw the sights of another strange city. I missed you like crazy. Happy 24th my beautiful best friend, May 6th will always be one to celebrate.

12 year old us.