Friend.

Thought about you for the first time in a long time today.  I still miss you. It's quieter now, and it doesn't hurt anymore.  But you're still there, in the mixed-up dusty corners of my soul. I think you always will be.  I'm happy that you're gone- and I'm happy that we don't need each other anymore- but I also want you to know that I never meant to let you go. Leaving you behind, was something I never wanted to do. I believe with all of my being that had circumstances been different, and situations altered, we would have made it.  And we would have been happy.  And eventually, someday, there would have been that cute little house with the crash-couch for our friends. We were not ill-fated, but our timing was wrong.  I was not wrong for you and you were not wrong for me, but we weren't ready. Things are different now.  I live in a world entirely apart from yours, and that's okay.  It's not sad anymore.  In fact, I'm happy these days.  Real happy. I hope you're happy, too. Honest.  You taught me so much about myself- you were the best platform from which to jump beyond all of my self-doubt, and my insecurity. Just know that every time I hear a Styx song on the radio, I think of you, and I smile.  And every time someone tells me about one of their heroes, I think of that summer, during that very significant time of my life, in which you were mine. And every time I remember the smell of that restaurant, and the look on your face- I close my eyes and pretend that when I open them I'll be looking into the greatest pair of eyes I've ever seen, one last time. It's funny, now, realizing that I can't move forward without saying goodbye. I think for awhile there, I thought I could just distract myself until I had forgotten.
Well, distractions, they come and they go, and while they're exciting and beautiful and I accept their presence in my life and the significance they hold in taking me further from you- I still couldn't bring myself to say goodbye fully until right now, not until right after today.

So this is goodbye, friend.

You are golden- and my memories of you are laced with fireworks and diamonds.

Please, stay like that always.

With your hands behind your back as you coast down the avenue, whistling the overture from "You Can Fly!" like you were on the very first night I met you.

You are a perfect representation of the Peter Pan who would have returned with the others to be adopted by the Darlings.  You are Peter Pan, if Peter Pan had decided to grow up, and you were so crucial in the process of growing me up, too.

Which is good, because we both know I needed it.

Be seeing you-

Goodbye.