The last day we played outside

I’ve been thinking loads about summer hols as a kid and childhood friendships. Specifically, the last time we played outside with our friends.

There was a day, An exact day.

One moment, we were racing home from school, dropping our bags at the door, and running outside without a second thought.

And then, suddenly, we weren’t. There was a last time we knocked on a friend’s door unannounced, a last game of hide and seek, a last time we built lego castles, played with our dolls or made up imaginary worlds.

But we never knew it was the last time.

I always find that strange when I think about growing up. It happens without ceremony. No one gives you a pre-warning or an announcement that “childhood is over”. You kinda just wake up one day and realise you have been talking about it in past tense for months.

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Slipping through my fingers

Every time I think about this, my mind plays Slipping through my fingers. That ABBA song that somehow makes every moment feel like it’s already a memory, even as you’re living it.

I try to capture every minute… the feeling in it.

Slipping through my fingers all the time.

That’s exactly what childhood feels like. We never understand we’re leaving it behind. We never say goodbye to it properly. It just…drifts away until one day we wake up and find ourselves making dinner plans instead of knocking on doors.

Sometimes, I look at kids on the bus, walking past and think “man, I hope you cherish this”. As I know, one day, they might be like me, sitting where I’m sitting and becoming the kinda person that says “we should really catch up” but never really does.

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Life today…

Now, friendships look different, don’t they? We don’t build lego castles, we build Google calendars to find time to meet. We don’t knock on doors, we schedule coffee catch-ups three weeks in advance.

At some point, the default changed.

We used to scream each other’s names down the street, now we text “I miss you, dudeeeee” at 1am and not doing anything about it.

I guess we traded playgrounds for group chats and lego for bottomless brunch.

Why didn’t anyone tell us that learning to schedule love would feel so much like losing it?

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We moved forward but we expected home to stay the same

We think of childhood as something we leave behind, but it’s not just us who change.

We move away, build our own lives, get caught up in work, relationships and whatever version of adulthood we’re trying to piece together. And in our heads, home is frozen in time.

Our parents perpetually forty-something, the house exactly as we left it, our childhood friends suspended in amber.

But then we come back and see that our parents have aged too.

The home we grew up in looks smaller.

The people who raised us move slower.

There’s a quiet moment, when you notice the little signs of time passing — mum’s new grey hairs, deeper lines, dad’s sigh that sounds more tired than you remember.

And you have this realisation that just like childhood, they have been slipping through your fingers too. While you were busy becoming yourself, everyone else kept becoming too.

I first felt this pang of nostalgia when my grandpa passed away. He lived in Hyderabad and I, in London. But home in Hyderabad was always him. His laughter was what made that house my home.

When I went back for the first time after he was gone, I sat on the kitchen floor where he used to read me his poems, where he’d teach me about the Gita and his favourite philosopher George Bernard Shaw, where he’d scold me for not eating enough. The same tiles, the same walls, the same afternoon light streaming through the window.

But without him there, it felt like I was seeing that room for the first time. I noticed the scratches on the dining table for the first time, the marks on the wall. Because, when he was there, nothing else was worth observing.

It dawned on me then that he had slipped through my fingers too. While I was busy becoming myself in London, building my own life, he was quietly becoming a memory.

I wish I had the maturity then to realise that the purpose of life wasn’t just to become my own person but to also take more time out of my “busy days” to cherish those who helped me become the person I am today.

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What friendship & family look like now

I don’t want to leave you sitting in sadness, because there’s something beautiful about how we love each other now, even if it looks different.

Rather than building imaginary worlds together, we build each other’s confidence, careers, and dreams.

Where we once shared snacks in the playground, we share life advice and voice notes that stretch for minutes.

I’ve learnt that the people in our lives right now are ones we have actively chosen. I think that means something.

We can’t freeze time, but we can certainly be more present in it.

Ring your mum before she has to ring you first.

Tell your dad about your week instead of waiting for him to ask.

Show up for your friends, even when life gets busy (especially then).

The last day we played is gone but the first day we choose to play again, is always available my friends.