thirteen years is a very long time. long enough for people to work their way into my heart of hearts and make themselves right at home, and  long enough to snap all my heartstrings with the thought of leaving them and being gone. these are the kids I grew up alongside, the ones who made fun of me and pulled me along, cried with me and loved me right when I needed it most. it's hard to separate so much time like that, into first crushes and true friends and growing up and broken hearts and knowing smiles.

somewhere down the line between the school playground and the brick walls and the hockey games and the crowded halls, we grew up. traded in our scribbled notes for cell phones and stopped running away from boys. we bought cars and found freedom and wasted time and learned about life and love and regret. it's been the blink of an eye, it's been a beautiful, bittersweet mess and catching sight of the end made every single second we'd spent together get caught in my throat.

we had four days to make the trees and the tents and the beach our home. four days to remember a million little things that have touched us and changed us. we spent our time hiding from the rain and rushing out to kiss the sun whenever it smiled again. we sat around the fire and remembered, just remembered. we went for midnight walks to the lake and took pictures of everything that meant something to us and ate burnt toast and nutella and cookies out of our hoodie pockets. we met ross, the ex-cop who called me sunshine and who loved to tell stories of his life and we listened despite not knowing what it's like to have to look back to see the only stage of life we've ever known. at night, we watched the stars and the northern lights and laughed at the boys with their cigarettes. growing up gave us enough time to form habits, I guess. those nights were far from perfect but, I think that's what made them exactly that. and lying in the dark at 3am listening to the rain patter on the tent and to the sound of the people I love sleep-breathing next to me, I curled up and whispered to myself that there's no where else I'd rather be than here.