It is the Fourth of July and I am sitting alone on the roof to watch fireworks scattered all over the city. They screech and pop from every direction and when I close my eyes it sounds like I am being serenaded by thunder. Some fireworks peak out from behind buildings while others shoot over them, completely unobscured but still fleeting. For one single second, they outshine all the city lights. 

I pretend each firework is a shooting star and I make the same wish every time.

I wish you were here right now. All of you. Everyone I love.

Because it’s beautiful. The rooftop view. The city lights and all the fireworks. The distance in between myself and the ledge.

I think maybe that’s all love is. Longing for someone to be a part of any and everything beautiful and then making your life beautiful for them to be a part of.

Did you ever think this was possible for me?

I can’t even recall exactly when it happened, when I started holding onto my life with both hands. 

Maybe it was the very first morning Kaitlyn made us coffee while I was still sleeping, how my day was made before it even begun. I used to lay awake at night terrified that when I closed my eyes, the world would keep turning without me. And now I know it does. But thank god it does. I think maybe love is just being remembered even while you dream.  

Or perhaps it was the night Bre, Derek, and I sat in the living room eating McDonalds after a night out and it felt like Middlebury, Indianapolis, and Chicago all at once. Is there a word for the way that old friends make your hometown feel bigger than it was? I think maybe we will always be teenagers together. I hope so anyways.

Or it could have been the night Landon crawled up the fire escape with blankets and pillows piled high onto his back and we laid on the roof listening to new sad songs and talking about the same old sad things. I think maybe the bad news is that some things just never aren’t sad. But I think maybe the good news is some people just stay and stay and stay. 

Or it might have been when Amy and I were getting ready to go out and we spent hours exchanging cosmetics and confessions, both becoming and revealing ourselves at the exact same time. I think maybe getting ready with your friends is just forever asking “Do you see me? How do I look?” and forever replying “Yes of course I do. Beautiful. Always.” 

Or maybe it was when I was baking chocolate chip cookies with Kaitlyn and we were using a recipe card that she had written out by hand. The only times I have ever used hand written recipe cards are with my mom and my grandma. I think maybe the people we loved just keep showing up in the people we love and the word never actually belongs in past tense. 

Or perhaps it was the rainy day Lucy, Kaitlyn and I made homemade chili and grilled cheeses in the kitchen and we ate together at the dining room table where we lit a candle just because. We did not pray before we ate but I promise you that meal was sacred. I don’t always believe in god but I think maybe on the very first Sunday when god wanted to rest, he came home and ate dinner with his friends.

I do not recall when it happened, when I started holding onto my life with both hands. 

But all I know is that I am. I am holding onto my life with both hands. I am clinging onto it firmly like a friend standing too close to the ledge. I am not letting go.

Because it’s beautiful. My life. The people in it. The view up here, alone, but not really.

Thank you.