Fifty years.
Five decades. Half a century. It feels momentous.
Salt and pepper hair, curling at the edges. A ready smile. A fit body from playing tennis incessantly. A minimalist before it became an in thing. A progressive before I knew what that term meant. A boomer living in a Gen Alpha world. You are an anomaly.
This morning you paired pesto paste with thakkali thokku on methi roti, making a wrap with cherry tomatoes and cucumbers. Your culinary tastes stump me, only because they go against the grain. A foodie at heart, with a surprising disinterest in learning to make food, you amaze me.
I look at old pictures to take me back in time to when I first knew you. As I scroll, I realize you have not changed much at all. It is how I view you that has changed. What once frustrated me, now is a source of admiration. What I thought of as inflexibility now seems a lot like holding your ground in the face of popular opinion. You have been a pioneer and a maverick long before they became things I aspired to.
So, here’s to decades more of braving the current, standing for what you believe in and, never losing hope that I will some day become a sports aficionado.
Happy birthday love.