“One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed.”
– The Little Prince ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖   ݁

to my dearest dane,

letting someone in — truly in — means handing them the power to undo you. how when you let someone into the soft, unguarded parts of yourself, you also open the door to all the tears… and gosh, if that isn’t what you’ve done to me.

you tamed me without even trying. you became part of the landscape, acting like the sun that warms up everything... so slow, so natural, that i almost didn’t notice it happening — until i looked around and realized; you were everywhere. in the way i write letters, in the quotes i quote. in my sense of humor. in how i think about comfort, about loyalty, about home.

you’ve always been one of the great loves of my life. i don’t mean that in a romantic — but in the way that you stay. when people talk about soulmates, they rarely imagine friendships. they should. because no one has ever known me quite the way you have.

and we’ve been through so much, haven’t we? so many versions of ourselves. so many days where we didn’t even recognize our own reflections. the heartbreaks that swallowed us whole. the healing that crawled in. the phases we swore would define us. the awkward silences we didn’t need to fill.

you saw me before i figured myself out. and you didn’t just stay — you celebrated every piece of me that felt too weird or too much or too tender. you reminded me that it’s okay to feel everything. to be soft, to be dramatic, to cry over things that don’t make sense to anyone else. to love deeply…

sometimes i think the world doesn’t deserve the kind of friendship we have. it’s rare. it’s the thing you write books about. the thing people spend lifetimes searching for. but we didn’t have to search. we just found each other.

or maybe we were always meant to.

in the little prince, the fox tells him that after being tamed, every time he looks at a field of golden wheat, he’ll think of the boy — because his hair was that color. and that’s what you are to me. you’re in the songs i can’t listen to without tearing up. you’re in every little part of me that still believes in wonder, in softness, in holding on.

sometimes i’m scared of time… of us getting older. of life pulling us in different directions. but then i remember: no matter where we end up, no matter what versions of ourselves we become — we’ve already been stitched into each other’s stories.

you’re eighteen. isn’t that wild? you’ve officially stepped into the age where the world starts to expect things from you — answers, direction, choices. but if there’s one thing i’ve learned being by your side all these years, it’s that you don’t need to rush becoming.
you’ve always been becoming, and you’ve done it beautifully!

thank you for taming me — even if it means i cry a little when i think of how lucky i’ve been to know you.

you are my fox.
my rose.
my field of golden wheat.
and when i look at the stars, i swear i can still hear us laughing.

yours, always, therese ˖ ݁𖥔 ݁˖   ݁