June 13th, 2009

The young teenager has blossomed into a grown adult. A long black gown adorned her body while her usual black cap was replaced with a funky looking black square and tassel. Compared to her emotions almost a year ago, she was beaming with joy.

“I have some good news and some bad news. The good news, the university is pretty close by! The bad news, I’ll probably be too busy to visit as often.”

“Are you really explaining this to a tree?”

“Hey, one of you were there for me when I had my breakdown.”

“I was sick! I said I was sorry!”

Joohyun only stuck her tongue out.

“It’s fine, I think I needed to find the strength in myself. It wasn’t what I wanted, but what I needed.”

The vivid red leaves were still biding time for autumn, but the tree was easily recognizable. A faithful visit on a snowy day had her cross paths with a simple tree. At the time, it was just a launching point for a small woodland creature to spring a surprise attack on her and scary the living daylights out of her. Now, it's a backbone to her story. She was still easily surprised and her ability to ignore passing comments wasn't fool proof, but she could feel her own growth.

Maybe it was just the abundance of emotions from her recent graduation, but she truly felt thankful for this tree. She likes to tease Seulgi that her best friend is actually