Next Time,

I'm going to hike the Abel Tasman Track, all five days of it.

We'll build a tree root hut on Rabbit Island and live there for at least an entire day, if not more. I'll weave the walls and you will fish and we'll float in that calm blue water until we've been borne across the bay and have to swim back to shore, running to our stick-and-stone hut, slap-slap across the sand.

I'll spend every single day outside, be it hiking, cycling, kayaking or running.

We won't be afraid to wave at him maniacally from the bus. He loves you, we know that now.

I'll take every offer to go out of town, be it Punakaike or Rotorua.

I'll eat a chip with tomato paste. One chip. Maybe.

We'll take the bus to Kaikoura, just the two of us. We'll pretend we're British tourists and say things like "jolly good" and "blimey!"

I'll stay over at Georgia's and we'll map out a rough draft of Footsteps on the Window. She'll still direct, though I'm not sure I want the lead anymore.

I'll do everything I did before all over again---not because it wasn't right the first time, but because we couldn't have done it better.

(And Salome won't get away so easily. Next time, I won't let her fall.)