Dear Seohyun,

I’m just going to be honest right off the bat here: you are simply amazing. Over these past 15 (almost 16!) years, you’ve grown from that adorable little maknae with a healthy fear of hamburgers (although, you took a bite out of one in the first episode of “Girls Go To School” — don’t lie) into a beautiful mature woman who is known for so much more. And that’s only the beginning, yeah? I mean, just look at all that you’ve done, how much you’ve battled through in order to get here, and how very, very far you’ll have landed in the future.

I can list a few examples of your accomplishments, and all just from the first several years of your career. A subunit, musicals (“Moon that Embraces the Sun”, “Gone with the Wind”), a drama (“Passionate Love”), movies (“Despicable Me”, which is a personal favorite), variety shows (“We Got Married” and “The TaeTiSeo”), OSTs and a bunch of other songs that can’t be found on any Girl’s Generation album (way too many to list): there’s so much, and somehow you manage to do it all. And graduate with a college degree no less — to think you’ve been in school since day one of this whole K-Pop girl group project.

But the great thing is that we know that you will always care. It shows in your visits to your unnies during their individual activities. It shows through your social media accounts, which you opened early on to interact more with the SONE fandom. It shows every time you allow yourself to smile a little brighter, laugh a little louder, goof off in a way that a maknae is expected to do, but you might have been a little too scared of doing so a long time ago.

I think you’ve matured in an incredible way. Growing up isn’t all about getting older, becoming more reserved, settling more into the path that you’ll go travel on for the rest of your life. No; instead, you grew into someone not afraid of showing your love, someone who can let her barriers down not just for the people she’s closest to, but for anyone around the globe who takes the time to sit down and look up this thing called “Girls’ Generation”.

That’s not to say you’ve changed entirely, of course. No, “change” is a different word that I’d never use to describe what’s happened since your debut. Here: remember that paper airplane you let fly in your scene of “Into the New World”? Now imagine that airplane not landing, not resting, not simply drifting along to wherever the wind takes it — but gliding over clouds, speeding through storms, earning rips and tears, but also colors it had never thought of having before. You’re still flying high, Seohyun. And really, you don’t ever have to touch the ground again.

But you know what the best thing is? You’ve taken us by the hand and are pulling us along for the ride.

So thank you, Seohyun. In return, all we can offer are wishes for a happy, wonderful, amazing birthday.

Sources: SOULKAJAZZ, Moments, TVReport, Seohyun’s Twitter, CCU, Seohyun’s Instagram
Written by: moonrise31@soshified

Edited for June 28th, 2023.
Originally posted on June 28th, 2015.