For the one who makes the ordinary days good

Our Story

Every year of it — the good stretches, the bad week, the arguments neither of us won, and the fact that we are somehow still here.

Aarav & Ishita

Together since

heartbeats, roughly

And still going.

It was never perfect.

We were never perfect.

But underneath every bad week,

there was still you and me.

The parts I keep going back to

March 2021
The night we missed the last train
You refused to call anyone, so we walked. Nine kilometres, most of it spent arguing about a film I still have not watched.
That winter
The flat with the terrible kitchen
Two burners, no counter, and we cooked every night anyway. I think about that kitchen more than most houses I have lived in.
August 2022
You met my mother
You brought the wrong sweets deliberately, because you remembered her saying the right ones were overrated. She has mentioned it every month since.
The bad spring
The month everything went wrong at once
You did not try to fix any of it. You just refused to leave, repeatedly, until it passed.
Last month
Nothing in particular
You fell asleep halfway through the episode and I did not wake you. That is the entire memory. It is one of my favourites.

Us, mostly unposed

The ones that never made it anywhere.

Something I do not say enough

I believe in the thing you are chasing.

I know what it costs you. The early mornings, the doubt on the bad days, the starting again when you are already tired. I do not always understand it from the inside, and there are days I make it harder without meaning to.

But I want you to know I am not waiting for the outcome to be proud of you. I am not here for a title or a result. I am here for the person who was brave enough to want it in the first place.

Whatever it gives you, or does not, I plan to be standing in the same place saying keep going.

And I owe you this

For the times I got it wrong.

For the arguments I dragged on past the point they mattered. For the times my pride got bigger than the actual problem. For things I said quickly and thought about for weeks afterwards. For the moments I should have listened instead of trying to win.

For every time I made you feel alone while being the person specifically responsible for the opposite.

I am sorry. Properly, not as a way of ending the conversation.

Not grand ones

Seven things, and I mean all of them.

01To listen first, and work out whether I disagree afterwards.

02To apologise without keeping a running total.

03To celebrate your wins without quietly making them about me.

04To stand next to you in the failures without making you feel like one.

05To give you space when you ask, and to stay close when you do not.

06To keep asking how you actually are, past the first answer.

07When it gets hard, not to go quiet on us.

Ours

The one from the car

You fell asleep to this on the way back and I kept it on so you would not wake up.

Open one whenever you need it

Little notes, sealed until you want them.

Put this down and call me. I do not care what time it is or what I said I was doing. It has never once been the more important thing.

You have been right about every big decision you agonised over and wrong about most of the quick ones. This one is keeping you up. That is a good sign.

Home moved. It is wherever your shoes end up in the hallway, which is currently the hallway I am standing in.

I am still here. I am probably in the kitchen being dramatic about it. Come and find me when you want to.

You are measuring yourself against people who started somewhere else. You are not behind. You are just honest about the distance.

You are the most quietly reliable person I know, and almost nobody notices how rare that is. I noticed.

And after all of it,

I would still choose you.

Maybe a little more patiently.

But still you.

Go on, press it.

Raise a glass

Here’s to us.

To the years behind us, including the parts we handled badly.

To your thing, and to the day I get to be unbearable about it in public.

To the flat with the terrible kitchen.

To forgiving each other for the versions of us that were still learning.

And to whatever we are slowly building between the two.

One more thing

I bought us a star.

Not as a metaphor. An actual one, catalogued and registered, sitting in a part of the sky neither of us can see from where we are standing tonight.

Which felt about right.

One thing I have never said.

I was already sure about you months before I said anything. I just did not want to be the one who went first.

Scratch here

What I actually wanted to say

I am not good at saying this out loud, so I built somewhere I could get it right on the fourth attempt.

You have made me calmer. Not by asking me to be — you never did that — but by being someone I did not have to perform for. I did not notice how tiring the performing had been until it stopped.

Thank you for staying through the version of me that was still learning. I am aware that took longer than it should have.

— always

A few years, a thousand ordinary days,

a handful of arguments, one long walk home,

two people who kept choosing it —

and somehow, one story.

Here is to whatever we build next.

Happy anniversary.

I do not know where we will be in ten years. I know I want you in the picture.

made for you