There goes your 21. Today, you are officially 22.

Toast your family. You went through the most horrible year for the past 21 years (of course, you are still young and never know what could be worse) but you survived. As compared to large number of tragic cases out there, you might be considered as one lucky girl but deep, deep down in your heart, you will never have faith again. However, that does not mean you do not love your family anymore. Instead, you cherish all the little heart-warming moments when you get to sit down, and talk to your family peaceably.

I know it hurts because I still clearly remember what happened to you exactly a year ago. But you are learning to forgive. You are.

Toast your friends. You have plenty of great friends around you, but you would never look for them whenever you were down with certain issues. Some might leave you alone, some might even blame you for not taking the initiative in talking to them. In fact, you were merely helpless to the extent that you had no idea how to solve the same ol’ problem anymore because you know this will never have a proper solution, thus you were extremely fed up with it. Then, third type of friends appeared. It’s a she, and a he.

She is completely different from you; be it physically, or mentally. Yet both of you click pretty well because God knows why. You went to the same classes, you took the same subjects, you ate the same food, you wore the same clothes, you got the same hair, you watched the same videos, you sang the same song, you shared the same happiness, and you cried for the same painful experience. Forget all those sad cases when you were young. Today, it is proven that you still deserve a BFF and you truly treasure her friendship.

He is your friend of friend. Due to some incidents, both of you started talking to each other and slowly found out that you had amazing similarities. He was like a father, who protected you from everything; he was like a brother, who cared for you when you were all alone; he was a best friend, who shared all the little secrets with you. Sadly you once believed there was genuine friendship between a boy and a girl but of course, shit happened. Today, you do not keep in touch anymore; but you are still thankful for his helping hands.

Toast your pets. You never wanted a pet because you knew you were not able to take up the responsibilities as a student without any income. But again, you have a funny family. You never thought you would have such amazing pets but little did they know how much they really meant to you when you were all lost. You have 5 parrots and 2 died; 4 tortoises and 2 died. But from the bottom of your heart, you loved all of them, equally. Until this very day, you still cry watching their videos. I know you still miss them, really.

And I am glad that you always ignored what people say about you and your pets. They do not understand. If they are your friends, they do not judge.

Toast your acquaintances. You met a number of great lecturers in your college; you talked to a few good men in your ordinary life. You hate law, but some of the lecturers are your inspirations of life. You like to make friends no matter what their age is, then you realised that even a chef in Bangsar or a photographer in Seoul could teach you so much thing about life. Even those mates from ballet/yoga/taekwondo/scuba diving lessons last time… And those friends from Korea. Funny how I am getting more and more sentimental now.

Toast your boyfriend. You might be living in two different countries and you could barely meet up sometimes, but rest assured you have the best boyfriend in the world. He is sweet, humble, funny, naughty, adorable, and simply wonderful. You make a great couple with him but things were not that great before this. Both of you once got into a really long break but he waited for so many months to get back with you. Today, you have learnt the fact that relationships are not always perfect but so long as you want it, you can make it.

I am glad that you are still deeply in love with him. 3 years, it is not easy for a long distance relationship. And do keep your promise, never hurt him anymore.

Toast yourself. You have changed so much in a year’s time. You used to have no stand at all but blindly following what people do and say. You used to be very naive without thinking of the consequences for what you did. You used to love attention from people. But today, you speak up for what you think is inappropriate. You think more than twice before it is too late. You are getting more and more privacy on FB eg. removing the connection between FB and Twitter, closing down the subscription list, hiding your friend list etc.

I have no idea why you are doing so. But sometimes, you just do not want to be noticed. Who says it ain’t a good thing to stay quiet in your own world?

Alas, a toast to my 21 years old. It was indeed full of ups and downs but all these definitely played a good role in contributing to my personality today. I am still growing up, I still have so much more to learn. Soon, I will be graduated from LLB and start pursuing my dreams. I will be travelling around because I fear the end of the world is coming. I will impinge on outrageous events that I had never came across with. After all I am still young, I want to set myself free. I do not know what happens next, but I will go with the flow.

Next chapter, 22 years old.

Yours truly,
Kat.