24 July 2024
Dear Alexa,

I think next to daily about the things I’d tell you if I could. I hope you know that I think of you when I go to sleep at night, and I imagine holding you close and sending love in rainbow shockwaves into your mind.

I love your deep voice, your banana curls, your huge belly button, your underbite. I love your silliness, your creativity, your insistence to move, your unceasing questions, your refusal to be silenced. I love that you can’t eat any yogurt that’s not key-lime flavored. I love everything you think is tacky about yourself, down to the cheetah print outfit Mom bought so we could match.

I love how much you look like mom, and how I startle myself passing by my reflection in mirrors because I see her instead. I love the way you carry your family with you in all that you do, in the sonar echoes of Dad’s love of the ocean, in our fingerprints in Mom’s clay.

I love your insistence on a brand, an identity. It’s changed through the years, but I steadfastly uphold it with a fervor that’s both mocked and envied in the same breath. I love it. No one can ever be the us that we become, and I know you, like I, would wear that as a badge of honor.

I know this is a letter to hype you up, but I’m sneaking this in and they can’t stop me: in a couple years from your now, ABBA gets back together, makes an album, and creates a hologram concert of themselves in London, England. You will be in attendance. Fuck the haters; you were right and you should know that.

All things to say, things get really good. They look bad for a little bit, but YOU (yes, you!) power through them with a grit and determination that would strike fear into God. You’re an unstoppable force, baby girl, and you have—maybe not the strength—but the willpower to move mountains, even if you take it one really cool piece of basalt at a time. That’s right! We’re a geologist—the one job that everyone told us was not feasible is now my sole source of income.

Everything comes back around. Every two-week-hobby you pour your soul into will come back one day in your job, your favorite drink will be mine (a Shirley Temple with two limes, obviously), and even though you fight against it, my job is exactly what you wanted to do in kindergarten.

You know who you are, you’re not afraid of that, and you are excited to see how that changes as you grow up. Many adults I know cannot say the same. You live up to your name, you defend people whenever you can, you step up in front of people to keep them from facing the brunt of a conflict. You are truly a free spirit, Alexa, because no matter how hard they dog on you, they cannot get and keep you down. Remember that.

I’m twenty-two and still alive. I love it dearly. I get mistaken for a stoner every two seconds because I wax poetic about the sun feeling like shaved legs under a sherpa winter blanket, or making grass angels and giggling when I get dirt stains on the ass of my homemade cut-off denim shorts. I can’t help it! I love my life, and it’s scary sometimes, but always worth it. I’ve lived through it all up to this point, and I don’t plan on stopping.

I love the life that you cultivated, and I love the person you grew to become. I couldn’t love my life without you.

I love you more than all the salt in the world, AJ Monkey,
Alexa (that’s you!)

PS. I even own the chicken purse Mom wouldn’t let us buy in seventh grade. It’s my everyday purse. Being an adult is awesome.