Letter to a Friend

I wrote this to a person who I've known for a scant year. After sending it to him, I thought I'd put it here, like all my other scribblings. Enjoy.

I was going to save this for after you graduated, for a point in the holidays – because I won’t see you as much after graduation and thus would spare us both potential embarrassments. Still, you know what I’m like for getting my emotions out, so I hope you understand why I have to write something like this to you, and I hope you respect me for it. In fact, I’m pretty sure you will.
You may remember a point in time where I told you I wasn’t sure if I counted you friend, fascinating, frightening or attractive. Moreover, I didn’t tell you which was strongest – I concluded over time that the latter two were strongest. That’s since changed, and quite drastically, and I want to tell you why without tripping over my metaphorical tongue – something that is actually proving quite tricky, so bear with me. D:
You noticed that I’m not a very happy individual. I don’t like people. To me, most of them are something to be held in contempt, unable to rise above the horrible motivations and desires that rule their insignificant lives. But in you, I saw – and see – something more, and I’m trying to express to you what that has done for me.
I was suddenly confronted with an individual who desires to help others. An individual who told me many times that they desired my happiness, and my happiness alone. An individual who endeavoured many times to bring me that happiness. You didn’t succeed – I don’t believe that anyone or anything can bring me happiness but myself, and that will take time – but you gave me something more, something infinitely more valuable.
In observing you and your tireless endeavours to make people happy, to help them to smile, I saw something incredible and boundless in the human psyche that I had not had the chance to observe before then – that of selflessness. Through you I transcended through my contempt – it’s actually quite a spiritual evolution, and you were the engineer of it. In short, you are the source of my hope. You couldn’t give me happiness, but you gave me hope in the short time I have known you. I told you once that I love you – and I mean that more now than I have ever meant those words, because you embody everything in people that I admire, respect, and aspire towards. You’ll probably disregard most of this as ill-informed or unsuitable in describing you – and I do also, because it does not capture what I am trying to say adequately, but I’m doing my best – but I cannot express to you how much meeting you and having you in my life for as long as I did, however short they may be, has done for my mental state of mind, my faith in individuals, and my capacity for growth.
You are a fantastic, incredible, wonderful individual and I am truly blessed to have had someone like you around. I love you with all my heart, as a brother, and I thank you from the bottom of it.