Happy birthday Mady

twenty-and-three

Dear Mady,

Happiest 23rd birthday. Wow! You’re growing up! 23 feels like a real, Adult number. Up till 22 everything feels probationary; 23 feels tangible, with no room for fuck-ups. Beyond the number, you’ve done loads of Adult Things recently. You graduated from UCL (Congratulations!!!!!!!!!). You moved cities (all by yourself) and started a new chapter of life. You’ve been through an intense summer where you lived a million lives. Lots of happening things… 

Starting this letter by letting your 22-year-old self stare into the eyes of your 23-year-old self… facilitating introspection for you.

I think the toughest part about living in places so far apart is how difficult it is to celebrate things. You wrote about this in your birthday letter to me too. I feel like we miss out on all the random important things in each others’ lives. I think it is crazy that I would plan get-togethers or birthdays and my best friend would never be there. I wish I could’ve come and seen you graduate, or made the journey with you to Glasgow and helped you move in. There is something so bittersweet about watching all the milestones pass from afar. It feels like we spend so much of our time living in second person. I hate that I have to explain literally everything in my life to you, and vice versa; I wish we could go around and experience everything together. Honestly it is almost ridiculous how we spent three years in the same school and barely talked, and got so close after we weren’t physically in each others’ lives anymore. In a strange way I feel like it makes me (us?) appreciate the friendship so much more. I think if we had stayed in the same city we would’ve taken each other’s proximity for granted, or have become one of those “occasional” friends. (Honestly, I think it’s been long enough and I’ve learnt the lesson of appreciation. PLEASE universe let us live together ASAP.) Still, every time I think about it I feel a twinge of regret—all that time we took for granted.

In every successful sitcom, the premise always revolves around best friends living together or in the same vicinity, and perhaps that’s why they’re sitting around laughing so much. I really truly cannot wait for us to get to that stage of our adult lives where we become like sitcom characters and spend all our time together. What I love so much about our friendship is that we always create something to look forward to, even though most of the times it’s just rooted in the Instagram Reels we send each other. I sometimes forget that we have free will and can actively chart out our journeys to merge here and there, despite how differently our lives are going. I think of how in 2021, 2022 it felt nearly impossible that we were ever going to meet. Now the most obscure places and strangest ideas feel like they’re brimming with possibility. 

One of the more unserious texts I’ve received… never a dull moment with you

I think we had a long conversation on text or call about our strange and visceral daydreams as children. I had pretty typical daydream behaviour—how will I fall in love, what will I be when I grow up, what I’d look like when my boobs grow bigger (still dreaming about that one), and what my future best friend would be like. I think I had even come up with a possible fictional best friend: what her name would be, what we would do together, what we would talk about; details that I struggle to remember. To be clear, it wasn’t that I didn’t have friends at all. I definitely had friends, and within friends there would be one I was closest to, the best friend of that era; and these phases would ebb and flow and they’d come and go. Wanting a best friend is different from craving a romantic love — that to me feels not very real, more based on what you would see in films and TV shows, rather than something you intrinsically come up with. I wanted to have someone who would always pick me for every game, always sit next to me in the bus, always hold my hand when we had to line up for class, always look for me in every crowd. I don’t know at what point I stopped imagining or thinking about this. Maybe mid-secondary school (the time children stop dreaming). Either way, I’d completely forgotten about it until recently. I think it was a sudden realisation too; I probably was thinking about something I wanted to bring up to you about what we should do soon and randomly had a flashback to the times I used to fantasise about best friends. How bizarre! 

It feels so surreal that I ever needed to wish for a best friend, looking at how life is right now; but it seems like all of those wishes worked out for me. I think it is one of the greatest luxuries in life to have a friendship as beautiful and rare as ours. I would honestly go ahead and say it is beyond any daydream I could possibly have imagined. You are one of the best people I know. You are so smart and so open-hearted. You are genuine and authentic and secretly very warm, which people usually can’t tell because you often go non-verbal. You are also incredibly photogenic, a skill I am dying to learn. I love how quickly you and my siblings bonded; there is something so heartwarming about seeing your favourite people in the world just hang out and converse. I always want to talk about you to everyone (I must come across as very annoying); you are like a badge of honour I wear on my sleeve. You are one of the biggest reasons life is very worth living for me; in fact I think it is the fact that two individuals can connect in the way we have that evokes the meaning of life. I love how stupid and ridiculous we are with each other. I think of some of the goofiest things we did over the summer and it still makes me grin uncontrollably and then my siblings stare at me like I’m a crazy person. I really wanted to post the pictures I took of you zonked out literally every opportunity we got, but I will be kind. The Vogues? Potato Head? Vault? Gili? The Gojek? (This does not make me grin uncontrollably. I still have PTSD from that event.) Nobody will ever get it. 🤓☝🏽

This day was probably one of the best. We cycled around Gili Island and took some pretty ridiculous pictures. We saw a helicopter landing pad. I have a weird Tyra Banks-adjacent photo. Not included in this series is the failed jumping shots that we attempted. I think it would’ve been too evil if I posted any of those (for our eyes only). I died laughing looking through that series.

This past year, or maybe even the past couple of years, haven’t been the easiest. So much has happened and so much has changed. I don’t think I say this enough; I want to tell you that I’m really proud of you for making it through everything and coming out stronger than ever. I write this honestly and earnestly—I am always amazed with how you make everything work out for you despite the odds. I used to say “The universe makes everything work out” but I think it is less the universe and more of your inner strength, and honestly just you as a person. Life can be really difficult but you prove time and again that you can get through anything and emerge stronger. At the same time, don’t carry the world upon your shoulders. I hate that you place so much pressure on yourself. Give yourself space and time and patience; you absolutely deserve it. I am always rooting for you. I’m so excited for what this new chapter of life will bring for you. I know at the moment you’re not really expecting anything, but I know the best things happen when you least expect it. So far from all the pictures you’ve sent me Glasgow seems to be a very magical place. Maybe there will be lots more metamorphoses in the coming days… and I’m excited to see it all unfold. 

When I went to drop you off at the airport I felt like dying every second. We acted nonchalant and casual as we hugged in-front of the departure gate. I walked away alone with a lump in my throat. There is something all the more painful in this coy restraint that we adopt when there is something emotional happening. And yet it is hopeful in its own way; it’s never a Goodbye with you, it’s always a See you later. Text me when you get home, and tell me everything that happens. When are we meeting next? What are you doing next week (month, year)? 

I feel like I've posted the first (left) photo a lot but there is something so nostalgic and genuine in the behind-the-scenes of us figuring out the best angle. Maybe I'm being manipulated by the yellow lighting.

Happy, happy birthday Mady. To the rest of our lives and all the memories we will make. Love you eternally, and talk to you soon.