Hello was what I heard as I walked out the door.  A soft smile bundled with it.  Was she talking to me?  I wondered.  A few more hellos and the message was received.  It wasn’t sent to my spam folder.  What could she want with me?  I wondered.  I tested the waters, did some self-investigating while contemplating why she stood by the door.  Who was she?  I wondered.  Thankfully, I got the privilege to know numbers and colors, likes and dislikes, fears and triumphs.  The less I wondered. 

I stuck my body in the water.  It was time to go knee deep; not the time to retreat.  I was hooked on this girl, and something told me she was hooked on me.  So, I love you was exchanged probably one hundred times.  Though hard at first, it became easy as the seasons changed; our hearts with it.  Months added into years, and different colors showed; the true colors of us both.  They blended and clashed, but ceased to fade.

So that brings us to now.  Nearly three years later.  It’s almost my cue to leave.  I’m ready for a new life, yet, I don’t want to leave her behind.  Therefore, I write this, an I love you, exchanged for a thousandth time. 

Who’s going to tell her she’s stubborn?  Who’s going to tell her to try harder, and tell her they’re proud when she does?  Again, I start to wonder. 

The more I wonder, the more time is telling and urging me to let go.  Despite my reluctance to want to, the moment is ripe.  Children can’t always be children.  Thus, she can’t stay my Kid forever.  Like the motherly and sisterly figures in my life, I have to start seeing her as an equal — an adult just as they had to do with me.  I wonder if the transition will be as easy for me as it was for them. 

I’ve never been so full of wonder about one person before.  I’ve met a lot of people in my life, and no one makes me feel better than she does.  She is honestly everything to me.  Despite the times when she makes me mad or disappointed, I take one good look at her face and see the little seventh grader that I grew to love and look after, and suddenly, all the bad things I want to say to her diminish into nothingness.  I’m going to miss seeing that face. 

I adore her more than anything in the world, and the feeling is unexplainable.  I don’t know why I spend such a great deal on her…it’s something that just happens, like sleep.  Anyway, she’ll probably be the best grooms-maid at my gay wedding, the Godmother of my adopted child, and will probably talk smack about me with my wife over a late night glass of white wine in my absence.  All of this will happen because she knows me.  She really, really, really, knows me.  She knows my inner and outer identity along with every mood and feeling that passes through my body on a daily basis, and that’s wonderful.  Jen, the most stubborn pain in my ass, is wonderful, and I love her…for the one-thousandth-and-one time.