Nineteen felt like standing at the edge of something,
no longer a child,
but not yet steady in who I was becoming.

It was a birthday surrounded by love,
even in all its imperfect, fragile forms.

I was scared.
Of the future.
Of change.
Of losing the people I loved as I learned to love myself.

But you were there.
In texts, in memories, in heartbeats I couldn’t name yet.
And somehow, that made growing up feel less lonely.

Nineteen didn’t give me all the answers.
But it gave me a reason to keep asking them.
And it gave me you,
in the quiet between everything.