Dear friend,

You're a better writer than me.

It’s true, you are. Even when you’re not impressed by your spelling, grammar, or structure, you run laps around everything I have ever written – including this letter. I love how carefully you choose your words. I can always tell by the mismatched spacing between words and frantic crossing out. We are not a tippex people regardless of what our governments want us to believe. I love how clear it is that you were excited to get to your point. You rush past filler words, you spell your ‘with’ with an ‘e,’ and forget the ‘l’ in your ‘honestly.’ I love that you’re letting me know what you think, feel and remember. In a hurry yet low enough to put pen to paper. I love that you cared enough to cross out the ‘e’ and still forgot a ‘the.’

I live for this honesty.

I’m sitting here with a section of my travel folder full of letters I didn’t write. (Yes, I am way too grown for a travel folder but the memories of an unaccompanied minor linger and bind me to it). Maybe you knew this, or maybe you didn’t, but to me letters are love in a pure form. We commit part of ourselves to each other when we write something and share it. I feel so loved, so purely loved, thinking of you finding a pen, picking out a card or stealing printer paper, and only separating one from the other when you meet the margins of the page. And I can see you reading it over, following your words with your finger and whispering them to yourself. I know you did this in the car or on my couch, and, for today, I am not concerned about breaking this generational curse. I see you signing your name in a cursive my grandfather would applaud. I can imagine how gently you folded it up and how close you kept it until I was ready to receive it.

So, yes. You are a better writer than me. Not just for the cursive, but for all the care that came with it.

See, I’m writing to you in my journal (and typing it for my blog, hi!). One that has not felt my pen since August 21^st - the day I was willing to admit to myself that I was losing a friend. I remember going for a walk earlier in the month and I started a voice recording that is full of hawus, yoh sanas, murdas and I’m trippings. A lot was said in my 40-minute solo-walk between deep breaths, an overly friendly dog and a deer sighting but bringing it to paper felt all too real and I was not ready for that (the Aug 21st entry is barely a page so we’re actually still here). Friend, you are the better writer because you are braver than me. So brave and so strong.

Saying goodbye, at least for me, was a tough lesson to learn. I must have been nine years old when I cried all the way across the border because my summer of cousin fun was over. I never wrote a letter. When I turned 10, I wrote a letter to a different cousin telling her how great my summer had been - the first postcardfromKoko as far as I’m concerned. Eight words filled a whole page and you could tell I was the last in my year group to get my pen license but I could have sworn was the greatest writer or at least destined to be one day. Many years later and I have to question just how great because, friend, you are a better writer than me. It took me two pages and 16 words to share my excitement all those years ago. It took two words, “okay then,” to end 10-years of friendship this past summer. But you, friend, you said goodbye (for now) in so many beautiful ways – on paper and through text.

This poor man next to me has no idea why I keep crying and looking through my bag for more letters to read or scrolling through paragraphs on my phone. It’s not a pretty cry either. I couldn’t bring myself to let you see the tears when I hugged you goodbye in case you realized that I am so much more terrified than I am excited. Now this sweet young man, who waited for me to wipe up my tears before he asked to “scoot past me,” has to endure what I was too afraid you would see – I am wholly reliant on your confidence in me because I have none of my own right now. I am completely out of my depth, much further than I’ve ever been, and I am so scared. But you, my friend, write about how proud you are of me and you tell me I am destined to be great and that I am a rockstar (!!) with so much certainty. It doesn’t matter so much anymore that I am unsure because clearly you know something I don’t and I trust you enough to know to fall in line.

At my first ever cross-country at Turi, I stood in line and tried to look as calm as possible while I was shaking in my lace-up/Velcro combo running shoes. I had watched my brother do it, and my brother after him, and my sister after them. You’re not the youngest so you might not know this – but anything my older siblings did, and did well, became a personal challenge. So like any other last born, I did it too. I ran over the bridge, through the mud, past the stables and back around to where they told us the helicopters landed. I found this group of girls and did my best to stick with them the whole way. I was being brave and strong and I made it back onto the field with all the flags and the finish line. I was tired and worn out and my legs hurt and I no longer knew what to do with my arms and I saw my family cheering for me – so proud – and I stopped. I stopped running. They looked at me like I had lost my mind, and maybe in that moment I had. I saw them and realized that I did not need to prove my bravery or strength to my family, just to myself and I did that when I made it onto the team to begin with. So, I ran to my parents and my siblings and cried about how tired I was and how hard I had tried.

Clearly they thought it was a joke because they raced me to the finish line and that’s how I finished my first cross country.

Three and a half years of university is by no means a 3.5km U-9 (?) race in Up-country Kenya. Yet, the bridges, the mud (read black ice and snow slush), the launching and landing pads are all here once again. I tried being brave and strong and many times I ran straight to the people proudest of me and cried about how tired and burnt out I was and many times I begged them to let me quit. And clearly, I’m still a joke to you, friend, because you raced me to the finish line and now I just pulled off my greatest academic performance at a top uni in the country (grades willing). All while showing up for my communities on and off campus. Yeah, I did that! And I know I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for you.

I’ll admit, I am 100% running to my family again to tell them how tired and worn down I am and how hard I tried. I’m tired. So tired. I’m really, really tired. And I’ll admit, I’m open to being bribed with ice cream and sweet treats and books just like I was all those years ago (hint hint: hi Dad). I will also admit that the best decision I made was sticking by this group and I am so luck to have had you stick by me.

Dear friend,

You are a better writer than me and I am a much better person for it.