To the person I love:

It’s been nearly a year, and my attempts to write something to you have remained just that—attempts. The words never truly came. Only the suffocating emotion of your absence would rise up the moment I held a pen. Missing someone like this—with such an aching, numbing feeling—is an experience I had never known before.

I used to pride myself on the self-control I had—that carefully crafted concept that shaped how I navigated the world. But it all felt meaningless after meeting you—meeting that vibrant, outgoing self with which you moved so effortlessly through life. You shook something loose in me.

Years before I even met you, I came across your paintings. They were the first trace of you I encountered. The abstraction in your outlines and the warmth brought about by your choice of colours gave me a profound sense of liberation—a release from the grip of control and perfectionism I always seemed to chase.

Whilst feeling overwhelmed of your absence, those very paintings—hung in my room and workshop—are what keep you close. They’re anchors. And while I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the quiet you’ve left behind, I also catch myself smiling wistfully during the day, knowing you’re out there, following your heart.

You’re like a fresh breeze—capable of moving from one side of the world to another with grace, and I’m that tree where you can always come back to.

Urban Driftwood is such an album, that was written to capture the feeling of movement and the natural beauty that still lingers in urban life. I think of us in parallel to that narrative. The city—with its carefully constructed architecture and structured flow—mirrors the self-control I’ve long lived by. But the natural beauty, the part that resists being controlled, the living force that no structure can contain—that’s you. That’s the energy that swept me off my feet.

Loving you, for me, has meant learning to understand myself better. Ultimately, life is a solo thing,—but in you, I feel the kind of company that helps me grow into someone more whole, more human, and more open to the world.