तेस्रो वर्षको शुभकामना, मेरी रानी ❤
I am late today. You already know that, because you know me. I spent the whole day trying to
write something big enough and everything I typed looked small next to what I meant, so I
deleted it and built this instead. Three years in, and I still cannot say it properly in one
message. That is not a flaw in me. That is the size of it.
Three years ago we started something that everyone quietly thought would not survive. Two
countries. A phone that froze at the best parts. Festivals spent alone, birthdays spent on
speaker, a hundred nights where the only thing I could give you was staying on the line until
you fell asleep. I used to press my finger on the screen where your face was. It never counted
as touching you. I did it anyway, every time.
And then this year it stopped being theoretical. I met you at last, and you were not a
notification, you were a whole person who was warm and tired and taller than I had adjusted for.
We went to Pashupati barefoot. We froze at Kalinchowk. We found a waterfall that was not on any
plan. You held my arm in front of Bhagwati and I stood there with nothing left to ask for.
जुन दिन तिम्रो हात पहिलो पटक समातेँ, त्यही दिन तीन वर्षको पर्खाइको हिसाब पूरा भयो।
But the part I did not expect is what I miss most. Not the temples. Not the mountains. I miss
the hospital corridor where we were bored. I miss you letting me lecture you about history by a
fountain. I miss two lassis on a railing when we were too tired to lift them. Nobody tells you
that the ordinary days are the ones that go into your bones. I have four months of ordinary
days now, and I will be living off them for a while.
Then came the airport, and you went back, and I am not going to pretend that was easy. But
here is what I have learned in three years that I did not know at the start: we are not lucky,
we are proven. Anybody can love someone who is in the room. We did it across a border, for
three years, without ever being given a date. Distance came back this month and found nothing
to break, because we already broke it once and it did not work.
So this is my third anniversary message, and it is very simple. I am not waiting for you the
way I waited the first time, anxious and unsure. I am waiting the way you wait for something
that is already yours. The arrivals gate is a matter of when, not whether. I have done the hard
version of this. I would do it twice more.
तिमी नै मेरो घर हौ, रानी — जुन देशमा भए पनि।
Thank you for three years. Thank you for the four months. Thank you for every single time you
could have let go and did not. Happy anniversary, my Rani. I am late, and I am yours, and one of
those two things is never going to change.
Still yours, three years in —
Dipen ❤
