happy birthday, emmeline.
Happy birthday, Emme! @emmelimes
It’s kind of hard to believe we’ve spent twelve (combined) birthdays together, isn’t it?
You’ve always been there. For each and every one of them, even when I was bending myself backwards to not be here for them. To not be present. To not remind myself that it’s another year without the people around me that should be here, that should be alive to celebrate with me.
But you’ve always been there.
To drag me out of those thoughts, to drag me back into the present. Back where I’m supposed to be, with you. With everyone I love, because I love too much and too many and have never known how or when to quit, and you’ve never asked me to stop.
My Emme, you are a gift. A gift to this world, and great Merlin, a gift to me and my soul because I would not be half the person I am today without you. I would not be here, without you. Some days, I would not be out of bed without you, or I would not be actively trying to live without you, or I would not be able to say the words that you deserve to hear from me for the next millennia, because it’s true and even though we are not in love, and we are not related, and we are not the stuff of legend (unless we’re talking Merlin & Arthur) -- but we are just as good. We are me and you, always.
You’ve been my best friend from the very start. From the word go. I don’t think the world really knew what it was getting itself into when it threw you and me into the same place at the same time on the way to Hogwarts. I am so endlessly grateful for you.
For your wild nature, for your compassion. For your love of cats, and your love of dogs. For your love of Tolstoy (the writer, not the cat,) and Tolstoy (the cat). For your ability to rewrite any mood that I’m in into a good one with just one phone call, or one message, or just one bloody word. For your endless capacity to love and support me, for your love of wearing lipgloss even though nobody’s going to see you other than you. For your wit, your unwavering ability to be kind one second and pull faces at their back the next.
I love you, Emmeline Vance.
You are my best friend, the one who always brings out the better parts of me, the parts that I did not know was missing in those first few days, the one that reminds me I can be anything that I fucking well want to be, the one that reminds me that kindness is not weakness, the one that reminds me that there are so many things to be grateful for in this world. You’re my soulmate, the one that I can always turn to when things go bad, the one who always knows the right words to say, the one who’s fingers fit between mine like a puzzle piece, the one that points out constellations from the window when you know I can’t find my words, the one who bundles me up in blankets and doesn’t care when I fall asleep with my head in your lap, because you can tell I haven’t slept properly.
You know better than anyone that I would do anything for you. I remember when we watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and you’d turned to me before the scene had even finished, because you knew I’d do anything for you. “What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon...”
You’re my family, E. Well, you’re probably more than family, really. Nothing would ever, ever be the same without you in my life.
You have changed me, forever. No matter where we end up - whether we end up on separate continents, in different parts of the world for the rest of our lives, or whether we end up going on that massive cross-Europe roadtrip, and countless Paris trips, and staggering through museums because we’re half-drunk on champagne and happiness and feeling at peace, that we always talk about because they all have to happen.
In the words of Elphaba, in the words of a writer who can put my heart into words better than I ever could... “So much of me is made from what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart. Whatever way our stories end, I know you have re-written mine by being my friend.”
You are my constant. The moon to my sun. The yin to my yang. The salt to my pepper. The Natasha to my Sonya. The chocolate to my strawberries. The Tom to my Jerry. (Or the Ben to my Jerry.)
I love you. I love you. I love you, and I like you.
Never change.
Yours, always and forever, until the stars go out and there’s nothing left to hold in this universe,
Doe xxxxx















