"You did the same for me, so I wanted to let you know that we got engaged."

What peculiar feelings a Sunday night text message can provoke.

When I got engaged, I felt so detached from being in love with you, worried only about my inadequate response to you, worried about your feelings only because you are my best friend. And now I want that for you. I hope you're feeling that same detachment today, that you are unfettered by the 15 years of emotional turbulence between us, and that you are only thinking fondly of our friendship. I want you to be happy and free.

I also briefly (1-2 hours, tops) felt like shouting from the rooftops that I've loved you since I was 12 years old and how the fuck are we marrying other people? Then, slightly more reasoned but still painfully unnecessary, I wanted to dialogue with you about our friendship and our love and how it all went wrong. I wanted to tell you that it was difficult to forgive you for always wanting the safe thing, for always leaving me hanging when I could not help but love you fearlessly and unabashedly, and that sometimes the only way to keep myself thinking fondly of our past is to keep a certain amount of distance between us in the present.

I haven't thought about actively loving you in so many years that it was shocking to be feeling any of this. It's been genuinely amusing, and although my 27 year old self thankfully has an internal alarm that goes off at the first hint of illogical emotional reactions, it's actually been enjoyable to feel a bit crazy again.

After giving my well wishes, we had one of the best conversations we've had since...well, probably since before I got engaged. You mentioned how good it was to talk again, and said we should do it more often. I hope we do, but we probably won't. And that's okay.

Part of me will always be 17 and in love with you on
a cold December night, but the rest of me is happy for you.