live more intentionally. make time for work and time for fun. work can be fun too but sometimes they need to be separate. make plans but be flexible. take yourself a little less seriously sometimes and be more open to new things. trust your friends to support you when you’re uncomfortable. take better care of yourself (mind, body, spirit). stop feeling guilty for being happy. 

dear henry,

i didn’t have the pleasure of knowing you like so many of my friends and peers did. but i’m so grateful that i had the chance to get to know you a little bit tonight through the beautiful, passionate, heartfelt words of some of your friends and family. i’ve never been very good with words myself, which is why i didn’t say very much to you when asha and i dropped off flowers yesterday. but i use that as an excuse a lot and i think i owe it to you and to me to work a little harder at this self-expression stuff.

henry, you seem like just the kind of person i’m trying to be. friendly, thoughtful, intentional, selfless, compassionate. and with a huge, welcoming smile and an acute sense of how to best be what people need you to be. thank you for modelling excellence in these areas and setting an example for me to try and follow. 

thank you for reaching out and being part of so many different and incredible spaces on this campus. what we saw tonight was beautiful: hundreds and hundreds of people from different campus and beyond-campus communities together as one beautiful, broken but simultaneously whole community. i wish people could come together like this a little more often at cal.

i finished my last final, just before your vigil tonight, to top off what has certainly been my best year so far. i said this at the end of last year too but it just keeps getting better. this year has been one of my hardest but i’ve also grown and learned so much with the support of an incredible network of the best people i’ve ever met. beautiful, lovely, inspiring friends who love and learn and laugh and cry with me, who challenge me every single day to be a little bit better. my friends here are some of the best people in the world and i don’t think any of us could do this without some kind of a support network like that. i know you have a ton of people who care about you so much too, henry, and that you have been such an important part of that support network for so many people. i just wish someone could have been what you needed too.

lots of people said this tonight, henry, but i wish i could have done something. we all wish we could have done something because you’re a beautiful person and we wish you were still here. but like one of your best friends told us tonight, you always go where you’re needed and that’s just what you’ve done now. someone and somewhere else needs you more than anyone here does and so now you’re there, helping them. 

i couldn’t do anything to help keep you here but i’d like to tell you a little bit about what i plan to do next. i’ve been looking forward to this summer and a new, fresh start for a while now. i haven’t been very happy with myself academically this year and i plan to work much harder and make better use of my time because each of us only gets a little bit and it’s my responsibility to make the most of it. i’m also going to work on being a better friend and part of this support system i keep talking about. i will work on being more present and thoughtful, more understanding and empathetic, more genuine and inquisitive in all of my interactions. i’ll smile more frequently at the SM booth and be patient but challenging with all of my break leaders. i’ll become more involved because as much as i complain, i’m really not doing all that much.

thank you, henry, for being a wonderful person and for reminding us all what compassion and community can look like. i’m sad i never knew you personally but so lucky to have been graced by your presence tonight and in the future. you’re a beautiful soul and i wish you nothing but the best wherever you are now, being exactly what whoever you are with now needs you to be.

with love,

sarah

(via beautyinthebr0ken)

there’s a strange kind of loneliness in feeling like you owe someone an apology who probably wouldn’t even know why you’re apologizing. so interesting and weird and a little bit unsettling how we value some people differently than others and some differently than how they value us. 

not quite as dramatic as last year, but saying goodbye to z today was still so sad! love you, z. you’ll always and forever be my best roommate and my shining star. so excited for your summer travels and research and to skype with you from across the country <3

still trying not to focus on the fact that some of these important goodbyes will be a little more long-term this year. i’m so thankful for the meaningful connections i’ve made with people this year and hopefully they can be maintained across long distances. i’ve never been very good at that but i’ve already declared this a summer of change, haven’t i?

late MCC nights and cheap dinner with my original best berkeley friends. just the way it should be. it’s so nice that even though we are barely ever all together anymore, nights like tonight are never any different than they used to be. these girls are the reason i fell in love with this school and it’s such a cool thing to be able to come together and realize how much we’ve grown, just in the last two years, both together and individually. can’t wait for two more years <3

lots of goals for this summer, but one of them is to start reading again FOR REAL THIS TIME. one book per week :D here’s a short list to start.

The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein
The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train - Howard Zinn
Barrio Boy - Ernesto Galarza
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
 

what else?

i don’t know if i’ll ever be the kind of person who can start 1:1 conversations with people i don’t know in the laundry room, but i sure appreciate people who can. i just met david, probably in his 60s, who is living with his son who has a disability while he goes to school. and what do you know, david was a high school history teacher for 35 years! nice guy, that david.

i don’t know what’s up with my passive aggressive roommates but kitchen things are disappearing and i have no pot in which to cook macaroni. a small problem since i need to make macaroni for the p’s who are coming over tonight.

everything’s funnier on very little sleep. one of those unit 1 hall associations is filled with people who would make great SA candidates, i think.