You already know by now that I was supposed to write a short little poem for this occasion but I couldn't get the prose down and I felt embarassed. I'm sure this will suffice instead.

It's been over a year since I first met you by absolute coincidence and it's been about a year to this day (the day I'm writing this) where we officially started our relationship. I like to tout how "unchanging" a lot of things are, but looking back on it, this definitely is not the case. I feel as if I, and even you (as much as you'd like to think otherwise), have changed substantially. As you could have guessed I'm sure that this didn't happen from our own volition. It should be no secret that we've made eachother better just by having a presence in eachothers lives. Knowing what we think of our future, it gives me something greater to look forward to; a kind of meaning that I was not even sure I could have. I wake up every day and think about what I can do to work towards that future. Often times I come up with nothing, so the best way to express my love to you is helping you become a better version yourself in a myriad of ways, almost in spite of what you have had to put up with prior.

I already mentioned my failed "poem", but I feel comfortable expressing the overall gist and the analogy I tried to incorporate with it. A little flower that has routed itself in a ditch. It is dealt harsh sunlight, periods of drought-- then followed by flash flooding-- among other natural extremities. Despite these circumstances, the extremities it had to weather also happened to be the things it needed to survive. It's water and sunlight which allows the little flower to become big; to withstand the extreme suggests its special capability. You can guess what, or who rather, this little flower is.

I like seeing you wake up every day, although at extremely irregular hours, and seeing you do things that you've struggled with consistently on a schedule. You've become better than me in this regard. At the same time, I know I'm the one whos inspired you to make changes in your life, to allow the little flower to grow big. It's just not in habits, though. I like how you've become gradually more accepting of your body. I hope that when we inevitably move in that I will be the one to feed you good food and help you become much more healthy. It is still extremely funny how you're older than me than a few months with the way you look, though in the meantime it's important to accept the things you can't change. That goes with the past in general, and I've seen you become more accepting of how those turned out more and more. We're all human, though, and I understand that we can't look back without vitriol or regret on all things in life. But to see you move past old "friends" and bad decisions the way you are now is indicative that you are truly growing. Soon, you will be able to forget it all.

The future is exciting. The more proactivity you show towards independence is the closer we can move towards this ideal. In the meantime, I think it'd be good if we spent more time together in preparation of a great change that may be happening in the next year or so of our lives. I want you to know that you can make happen whatever you are dreaming of, just as long as you hold out with this same hope I see in you right now. Much to my dismay, things will mostly stay the same for me as college starts back up. For you? Aim for the stars. I love you more than you can imagine, French Dou