Hey grandpa,

 

It’s been a while since I’ve written to you. Well over a year I think. That’s too long, I know.

 

I got a tattoo recently, my first. I wanted my first to be your mosaic, the bird, remember? Of course you do, it was your design. I’ll still get it someday, but I need to save my money. Think that piece is gonna cost me a lot more than €80,-. Right now I just got a small sun on my wrist, the one I used to draw since I was ten or something. I think you’d like it. Or not. I never really asked you about tattoos, I wish I could. Don’t think you minded them much though.

 

This past year has been fucking ridiculous. If you could talk to me right now, you would sit me down and tell me to calm the fuck down. Okay, not like that, but you would shake your head. I’d laugh and you’d tell me it’s not funny. It isn’t funny.

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Many times I’ve asked myself if I was doing the right thing. Had the right people around me. It’s funny, I always try to imagine you meeting the new people in my life. Just to see how you’d react, if you’d approve. Maybe you’d say something like oh, oh, oh. Little girl, they’re no good for you. Or you’d like them and just say they have a good heart. You were always great at that. And most of the time, if not always, you were right.

 

My decisions have been heavily influenced by you since your passing. Not in a negative way at all, worth mentioning. You always told me to follow my heart, so nowadays I try to think about how you would feel about the things I do. If I’m actually being true to myself or just muddling around. It helps me most of the time, but other times it feels really weird. I can’t talk to you anymore, not in the physical sense anyway, so I never get any actual advice. I just trust that you are there for me still, but I don’t know. I don’t know. I feel you sometimes though, grandma as well. Blackbirds were her thing, I haven’t figured out yours yet. Maybe the same. Or perhaps you’re flowers, locusts, music. I’ll figure it out.

 

I think you’d like my best friend, she’s great. I also think you’d like my current friend group as a whole, they’d make you laugh. And they’re great people overall. They resemble traits you had. That's important to me. 

 

Hopefully I’ll get to record more music soon, I think that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Maybe not full time, but definitely something to pursue. Also you’d tell me not to quit school. Truthfully it never really mattered to you what education I would have, but you’d tell me to see it through. Eventually I’d be happy to have it. And I think you might be right, even if I can’t see the full picture yet.

 

There’s this boy I like. Love. Don’t know. No way in hell he and I could ever be a thing, though. Things are always difficult when it comes to me and love. I found this notebook that I always wrote in when I was at your house. It was from 2015, I was fourteen then. Hopelessly in love with some dude who probably didn’t even know I existed. I cringed at my writings. Perhaps I’m not meant to focus on others right now. Just myself. I probably should. Then you’d tell me something along the lines of love will find you, just like it did with me, and a relationship is not the most important thing. Love comes in many forms. And you’d be right again. What you and grandma had, that’s what I really  want.

 

I haven’t been eating very well these days. You would probably force me to sit down and cook me chicken livers with white bread. God, what I would do to be back in your kitchen right now. Just babbling on about life. Then I’d try to make some disgusting soup with soap and water and you would roll your eyes, but smile. I am smiling too.

 

I miss you grandpa. Summer’s over tomorrow and I think I’ll do things differently this year ‘round. And I’ll write to you more, it makes things a bit easier.

 

Hope you’re good wherever you are. And say hi to grandma for me.