Tyler, it’s so strange to have you back in my life again… after 15 years of on and off searching. The days of Wonder are coming back like vivid flashbacks.

I could never deny that hanging out with you and the motley crowd of stubborn misfits, hopping night trains, the Playground on Loop St, sleeping at random houses in a big pile that didn’t stop squirming, all our mind-bending discussions with each other while tasty joints were rolled and I always passed them up, the ever changing faces that came in and out of the crowd in pulses, so HUGELY shaped me into who I am today. How I am able to just fit wherever life takes me without anxiety, no matter how temptingly amazing, or strange or uncomfortable, and know how to find those special people who make all the difference. I could write and write about those childhood experiences with you.

I’m just remembering how we dated for one amazing night on your birthday, the night with the fireworks, but then I chickened out afraid everything would change and I’d lose it all if we ever broke up. How you’d walk me home from art school pushing my bike almost every time. I’d pretend it was no big deal, but it was. When you weren’t there it sucked even more because the creepy guy would run up and he’d walk the whole time in total awkward silence, except when he asked a very probing creepy question…

And the time you were still there helping me fix a flat in the garden and my mom came home from work, lost her temper when she saw us and drop-kicked the grocery bag across the kitchen, and the cabbage rolled out the door and plopped in front of us.

Hahaha those WERE the days!!!!! MAN!!!!!

If it wasn’t for you after school to look forward to, and Bron who stuck by me faithfully as I switched from school to school, my life would have been so cruddy. Things were rough back then and I dreaded school so much. God only knows how I stuck the whole thing out. Oh yeah, you guys!

I don’t think I ever told you how much you meant to me. I should have, and so I hope in some way this makes up for it.