My Cousin Sister 2020 [updated] 💯

At first, it was just something to do. But by May, it was a lifeline. We’d sit there, two meters apart (just in case), and talk about everything except the virus. We talked about our childhood—the summer we got lost in the mela, the time she broke my favorite toy and blamed the cat, the secret language we invented when we were seven.

When you see the world shutting down, when you realize that the next hug might be months away, you stop holding grudges over dirty dishes. We learned to apologize. Really apologize. We learned to say, “That hurt me,” instead of slamming doors. We grew up, together, in that small space. my cousin sister 2020

I didn’t know then that those noodles would become a ritual. Or that Riya would become the anchor of my entire 2020. At first, it was just something to do

I won’t romanticize it. Living in each other’s pockets (even virtually) was hard. There were days we didn’t speak. There was a screaming match over whose turn it was to load the dishwasher. There was a silent treatment that lasted three whole days over a misunderstood text message. We talked about our childhood—the summer we got

The world lost a lot in 2020. It was a year of grief, fear, and isolation. But in the middle of all that loss, I gained something I didn’t know I was missing: my cousin sister as my best friend.