2017 — 2026
9 YEARS OF US
Some people come into your life.
Some people become a part of it.
The first photo we ever took together.
2017 — where it started
Before everything else, there was friendship.
There was no big moment. No plan. Just an ordinary day that neither of us thought to remember properly — which is somehow the most honest way a nine-year friendship can begin.
We talked about nothing for hours. We had no idea we were starting something that would outlast schools, cities, phone numbers, arguments and versions of ourselves we've both since outgrown.
2017
Our story
Nine years, one chapter at a time.
2017
The Beginning
Two people who barely knew each other, talking far longer than either of us planned to.
2017
When We Became Close
Somewhere between the late replies and the longer conversations, you stopped being someone I knew and became someone I told things to.
2018
The Years We Grew Up Together
We changed at the same time, in different directions, and somehow kept translating each other anyway.
2018
The Crazy Memories
The plans that made no sense. The nights that ran too long. The stories we still can't tell properly without both of us in the room.
2019
The Good Years
Nothing dramatic happened. That was the point. It was easy, and we didn't know to be grateful for easy yet.
2020
The First Big Fight
It wasn't about what we said it was about. It rarely is. We both said things we'd take back if it were possible.
2021
The Quiet Stretch
Not anger. Just distance. Weeks where neither of us reached first, and both of us noticed.
2022
The Hardest Chapter
The year I genuinely thought this might not survive. I don't think I ever told you that.
2023
When We Found Our Way Back
No grand apology. Just a message, then another, then a conversation that lasted like nothing had been broken — except we both knew it had, and we were choosing anyway.
2024
Everything Changed
New cities, new people, new versions of us. The friendship stopped being a habit and started being a decision.
2025
Older, Slower, Better
Fewer messages, more meaning. We stopped needing to talk every day to know where we stood.
2026
9 Years Later
Still here. Still arguing about the same stupid thing. Still one of the few people who has seen every version of me.
The good years
The years that were just easy.
The trips, the birthdays, the ordinary Tuesdays that somehow became stories. None of these looked important while they were happening.
The hard years
We weren't always okay.
This part matters as much as the rest. We had difficult moments. We hurt each other. We misunderstood each other. But we also learned, changed, and found our way through them.
The fights
Loud ones, and the worse kind that stayed polite. Most of them were about something neither of us was actually saying.
The misunderstandings
You read one thing. I meant another. Neither of us asked, and it grew for weeks in the silence between.
The silence
The stretch where the app said 'seen' and nothing followed. I kept typing things I never sent.
The distance
Different cities, different schedules, different lives. Distance is easy to explain away, which is what makes it dangerous.
The moments we were angry
I was unfair sometimes. So were you. We were both younger than we thought we were.
The moments we thought it had changed forever
There was a point where I made peace with this being over. I'm glad I was wrong.
None of it was clean. All of it was real. We came out the other side anyway.
The memories
Hundreds of them. Here are a few.
Tap any photograph to open the memory behind it.
Things only we understand
Nobody else would get this.
You know the one. It has no explanation and it has never once stopped being funny.
The one that went too honest too fast, and neither of us has brought up since.
I hear it in your voice even when I read it somewhere else.
Two days of silence over something that would fit in one sentence.
No plan, no reason, no photos worth keeping — still one of my favourites.
It's still there. I walked past it recently and thought about telling you.
Every time I've tried to explain it, it comes out as nothing.
Even on the days I don't want to be laughed out of a bad mood.
9 things I remember
Nine things that stayed.
- 01
The first time you actually made me laugh — properly, not politely.
- 02
How you never once made me explain a bad mood.
- 03
The way you always answer at exactly the wrong hour and it's always fine.
- 04
The advice you gave me that I ignored, and later took.
- 05
Standing somewhere ordinary and realising I was completely comfortable.
- 06
The apology neither of us said out loud but both of us meant.
- 07
How you remembered the small thing I mentioned once.
- 08
The day it felt like this friendship was back, without either of us announcing it.
- 09
Why you're still one of the most important people in my life after all these years.
The photo archive
Nine years, in no particular order.
What Nine Years Taught Me
People change.
Friendships get tested.
Being close doesn't mean never fighting.
Sometimes people hurt each other without meaning to.
Growing up changes everything.
Distance isn't the same as ending.
Some people are still worth choosing after all of that.
For the person who has known me for nine years...
I'm not good at saying this out loud, so I built it instead.
Nine years is long enough for people to become completely different versions of themselves, and we did. You've seen me at my most insufferable, my most lost, and my most unbearable to be around — and you're still here, which is not a small thing.
I know we didn't get all of it right. There were months I should have called and didn't. There were things I said that I meant at the time and regret now. There were stretches where it would have been easier for both of us to just quietly let it fade, and neither of us did.
I think that's the part I'm actually proud of. Not that it was perfect — it wasn't — but that it held. That we kept coming back. That after everything, you're still the person I want to tell things to first.
Thank you for nine years of not giving up on this. I hope you know what it meant.
— Jai
One last thing...
♫ Photograph
Ed Sheeran