A letter to my best friend on her birthday

Dear A, 

First of all, I want to say thank you. Thank YOU, but thank God too, for that afternoon in January when the random idea to ask you out for coffee beguiled me and you said yes. When it was freezing cold, but our blood was boiling because for that quarter of a day our broken hearts were mended, our fears at bay; suddenly, life made so much more sense. Suddenly, I allowed myself to believe that there was a reason for the way I was, that there was a reason for what I’d been through and it wasn’t just bad fortune. It was so that I could understand you and feel understood right back. It was so that we could have a four-dimensional experience of the universe and dive intricately into the struggles of others. 

Thank you for helping me feel normal. With all my irrastional, crazy, embarassing, frightening thoughts. With my sleepless nights and hopeless romanticism, with my curly hair and small boobs. With my fickle mind and fragile heart. Thank you for helping me understand that if God is out there he wants me to be happy. Thank you for joining me on a lifelong, implicit mission, to always seek the light in the darkness, to recognise our weaknesses as our biggest strengths. Thank you for showing me that one good friend is worth a thousand relatives and your family can take many different shapes and forms. Thank you for putting a cushion between me and the sharp emptiness I often feel. Thank you for offering me the peace of mind that if we don’t make it in the big scary world, and our dreams outstretch our talent, we can always go to a small village farm, grow potatoes and milk the cows. We’ll sleep when and if we want to, we’ll read all day and take artistic photos that suggest we didn’t make it not because we couldn’t but because we chose not to. It really does not sound that bad. 

Thank you for cleaning the hardware on my computer and for using your microscope to asses which of my three identical photos will match my Instagram feed better. Thank you for always photographing me and making my insecurities feel unaware of the handcraft of my design, for making me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. Thank you for not drinking with me. Thank you for not judging me that time when we went to the seaside and I ate chicken breast and grilled potatoes for six nights in a row. Thank you for encouraging me to have an ice-cream when nutritional information at the back scared me. Thank you for helping me immediately forget that I had one.

I know that living with me could often feel like walking on eggshells and I thank you for your patience. For all the times I have interrupted you halfway, fearing what you might say; for all the times you have listened to me talk about Him obsessively, as If we haven’t talked about it a hundred times before; for all the times when my negativity was fuelled by anger and you still welcomed it.

I am grateful for your wisdom, your sensitivity, your intuition, your faith, your femininity, your flawless skin and perfect hair. For the way you carry yourself, the way you care for the world, the way you carelessly commit to living full heartedly. The way you smile at babies, the way you love them before you have met them.

Your strength, courage and imperishable glow, inspire me so. They make me feel like I belong, like I am right where I need to be. Like there isn’t anything wrong with me, but perhaps with the world.

I know we often have our moments of doubt. But I promise —we’ll make it. We will wake up one morning to feel anxiety free, to float freely in our happiness, to run from one corner of our mind to the other, without being scared of what we might encounter. We will become the mothers we dream of being, the artists that inspire us, the women that our husbands need, the Goddesses that feel at one with the universe. We will love fiercely, and breathe peacefully, and live up to our potential. I know we will. And you know why? Because we have each other. 

Happy Birthday!

To Asya,

With Love,

N.