Dear Kylie,

Hello, how are you? I think you are a senior now or you just graduated, well, congratulations either way. You’re probably wondering where this came from, and who wrote it. Well, during your freshman year, in Mrs. Graham’s class, we had to write a spring writing piece. Your best friend decided to write to you. Can I tell you a little about yourself? You don’t really have a choice because I’m going to anyway!

At about 5ft tall and 85 pounds, you were tiny. You probably haven’t grown much since then. You were fearless despite your size. You were kind of like the big dog, stuck in a small body type deal. If somebody was messing with you or your friends, you answer was always “who’s butt needs some kicking today?” it was cute, but very true! You punched hard. You were strong enough to cut all of your hair off and dye it. Yes, people said things, but you blew them off because deep down inside of you, you knew you weren’t the things they called you. I had never seen a person with more guts!

Do you still plan on running in college? I hope you do. You really never gave yourself enough credit. Always saying “Why can’t I be just a little faster?” or “I should have pushed harder”. But you ran a 20:25 for 3.1 miles and you were a freshmen!! That’s pretty dang good! Do you remember the day you ran that time? I do, you told me all about it. It was at Oldham County, you always laid down amazing times there. It was in the afternoon and you weren’t really sure what was going to happen when that gun went off. Fairview was there and you went out with their number one and two runners and hung on for as long as you could. They only beat you by a second…

You had been going through something and were kind of down in the dumps. You weren’t really yourself. You were quiet and secluded, you were always quiet, but I could tell something was up. Your coach had been ripped abruptly away from you and your team. It was incredibly hard. You cried a lot. You just kind of wanted to be by yourself and you didn’t want people to ask what was wrong. It was your way of coping with the situation. All you wanted was for his name to be cleared. You never really understood why bad things happen to good people.

Music was you. You always walked around with one headphone in your ear. You loved music. It didn’t matter what genre it was, if it was fast or slow, or if it pumped you up or made you cry. You just simply loved it. Other people hated listening to your iPod because you always had it on shuffle and they never knew what song was coming up next. It confused them. It was the same way with your clothes. One day you would wear a t-shirt and shorts, then turn right about the next day and have on jeans and a cute little shirt.

You had a little brother, Christian (13) and a little sister, Allie (9). They bugged the crap out of you. Christian was going through that gross 13 year old boy stage where he didn’t care if his hair was clean, if he brushed his teeth, or if he put deodorant on that morning. Cologne doesn’t cover up body odor. I’m sure he has figured out that girls don’t like smelly boys. Allie was a tomboy. She loved Pokémon, always telling about all her favorite kinds. You being the great sister you are, always just listened and told her that it was cool. She always made up songs and sang extremely loud in the bath tub, but that’s alright because it made you laugh. I wonder how much taller she is then you now. You loved them both. Even though you thought they hated each other. Hopefully they have come out of the fighting-all-the-time stage.

You were part of the drama club. You enjoyed the challenge of having to be somebody you weren’t. You found it hard at first to just open up and not be afraid of what people thought of you. When I wrote this to you, you all were getting ready to do the wizard of oz. you were always talking about how you couldn’t wait for the play! You were the coroner of munchkin land, and when Dorothy, the lion, the tinman and the scarecrow finally make it to oz, you did a round off as they entered the gates…you were scared you might fall off the stage, I kind of was too.

As you come around the last turn of the track, you have merely 100 meters of the race left and it’s the hardest part…walking across the stage to receive your high school diploma, you have finally finished the race. But now you start a whole other race, the race we call college. The crowd is going crazy and you finished it just as hard as you started. Proud of you kiddo. Like a great man once told you “dare to be great.”

Your closest friend,

Yourself