5 Things I've Learned In 5 Years

It's been five years since you passed away. We usually commemorate milestones for happy occasions: a wedding anniversary, birthdays, graduations. I never thought I would be writing about your death five years later but here I am. I always knew that time is relative, sometimes you feel like ten minutes feels more like three hours or sometimes five years feels more like five days. I look in the mirror sometimes and don't realize how much I've changed physically in five years, I see the same eyes of my fifteen year old self but I don't stop many times to see what else has changed; I've gotten taller, my style has gotten better (thank god), and overall there's this sense that I am older. But that's the thing, as I've gotten older, you will forever stay seventeen. When I see photos of us I'm transported back to when I was fifteen and believed I was invincible. But a lot can happen in a very short amount of time, and in five years I've learned five very valuable things:

1. The human soul is the strongest part of your body: When I found out you passed away, I thought my life was crumbling. I saw no way out for weeks and months. And while no part of me was quite literally physically hurting, internally everything ached. Every breath I took hurt, I felt like I was being punished from way within me. But with time that pain began to slip away, I began to smile a little more, began to enjoy my life the way I knew you would have wanted me to. I pulled myself up and although there are still moments in my life where it's hard to keep going knowing you aren't by my side, my soul is at peace and I have an internal calm I had never felt before. 
2. New found independence: I was always someone that felt independent, but I never really understood that. When I lost you I felt like I was alone for many things, not only did I lose a friend but I lost my best friend, my soulmate, the closest person in my life I was comfortable sharing any and everything with. We were like family, you were always there when I needed you even if you had other things going on, we always made time for each other. I lost that person, I lost the person who completed me, you were the opposite to me in so many ways, yet that's what worked for us a lot of the time. When I said goodbye to you, I said goodbye to half of me and I've had to continue my life sometimes feeling like something is missing from my day. This independence wasn't something I asked for, it was something that was thrown at me because I had to learn to do things alone I didn't want to. 
3. Say I love you more often: The second I found out about your accident the first thing I texted you before knowing the severity of the event was "I love you" because in that moment I was terrified and felt like I had never really told you those words. Looking back at all our years of friendship now I do know we said them multiple times, but at that moment when I felt you slipping away all I wanted you to know was how much you meant to me, that I didn't take our friendship for granted. Now every time I'm about to step out the door, I get in a car or a plane to go somewhere, I always tell my parents I love them. Even if we've just had an argument, I try to never leave my house without having them hear me say I love them. Five years ago I realized how precious life is, but also have fragile it can be.
4. Your heart can break in a million ways: but it will also heal. It might take time but it will heal and it'll be a million times stronger than before. But you'll also learn to love more, to appreciate the people you have in your life. 
5. You won't be the same person you were before, but that's not a bad thing: I recognize that when I look in the mirror now, my physical look is not the only thing that has changed. Naturally with time we all change and evolve in some ways. But the person I am today is a million ways different to the girl I was back in 2012. I say yes to more things, I'm open to more adventures, I've found happiness being by myself sometimes, I've learned to not be afraid to say I love you more often, I'm not afraid to go traveling by myself, I'm no longer afraid to drive a car, my friends have become more like family, and I've learned to stand up for myself when no one else will, I've made some of the hardest decisions by myself in the past five years but I wouldn't change any of it. 

I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for the events that have occurred in my life. And while I miss you all the time, I've found the strength to be at peace, to enjoy my memories of you without feeling so much sadness that you're no longer here. You'll always be my boy wonder, the person that wanted to be a diplomat and save the world, and I'll forever be grateful that you allowed me to be a part of your world.