To the Invisible Man - You are an unfailing cheerleader and emotional support juggernaut. I have no idea how you do everything you do, and still manage to output such incredible positive energy. Honestly it's inspiring. I wish I was rich enough to set you up for the rest of your life. It would be worth every penny just for the occasional art piece you'd do for yourself (and everyone else would love), not to mention the music you make and the friendships you cultivate and grow with all the people around you. If I said this to your face, you'd deny it, but you are definitely one of the best people I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and you deserve far better than what your body and your job trouble you with. To the Zen Master - This year you loved hard, and lost. I fear I have placed myself as part of the lost, both with telling you how deeply I feel I need to move away, and by not being more actively there for you as you lost your loves to California. Maybe being around would not have been the sort of hinderance to your growth that I thought it would be. I am sorry. You are a much stronger, better person than you give yourself credit for, and if I could, I would be the mirror to make you see it. Your words somehow manifest the things I wish I could describe, and I don't tell you enough how lucky I am to have you as one of my best friends.

To the Young Authoress - A year apart was too long and too selfish, and for that I am sorry. Somehow you still coax more talking from me than anyone else, and I don't know if I ever thanked you for listening. I really do appreciate it. And, honestly, driving around with you and the other, exploring neighbourhoods with cool houses and unfinished houses, playing fake soccer in parks, and parking in the middle of nowhere in the freezing desert to look at the stars—I cherish these memories still. Our time spent together at school will probably be the highlight of my educational career forever. You have such a creative soul—it is bright and vibrant, even when you cannot see it past the emotional fog.

To the Last Unicorn Club Member - You are an amazing person: astoundingly brilliant, kind, thoughtful, funny, upstanding... There are only a few flaws even the nitpickyest of us could find in you. Maybe someday, after Med School, we can score a videogame together? It would be an honour. I am sorry I don't stay in touch more consistently, and that I bow out of games sometimes, and that I don't have the patience to learn how to RTS properly. You are perhaps my oldest friend, and I wish I was more open with you—lord knows you deserve it—but I don't know how to talk to you about the things that really matter to me. I hope you get in to exactly the program you want, and I know you'll blow away any competition you find. Good luck and godspeed.

To the Roommate - You are the bravest man I know. You moved almost as far across the country as you could have, and happened to room with me. Sure, we were pretty awful as freshman, but you have definitely become a Gentleman (on my scale, Gentlemen simply are exemplars of the Male populous). It was quite the journey we had, and I will forever be in your debt for introducing me to Steam. You do not let uncertainty guide your course—you jumped right back over to a new city (DC!) with the lady, and found a new home and a new job after you got there. And you always go straight at your problems, rather than sitting back and trying to ignore them. I think of a small thing you said to me quite often: your anecdote about going grocery shopping with the lady you one day discovered you were dating. To just be happy to be with someone, to enjoy just doing dumb adult stuff with someone you care for so deeply, that is the closest definition to true happiness I have ever heard.

To almost everyone on my social media: I am sorry I do not wish you happy birthdays. As much as this sounds like a stupid joke, I really mean it. I wish I could be more social with everyone—I don't keep people around who I don't care about to some degree—and this is no consolation, I'm sure, but you are all living your lives, and I hope they are happy ones.

And finally...

To Bunny: even after everything, I want it to work. Maybe one day this will fade, but even with all the time between then and now, nothing would make me happier than to wake up to the sight of you. I miss you, I love you, and I know this may just be one step towards whatever makes you happy and what makes me happy, even if those happinesses are separate.