So I have been mauling over this question, “when is the last time I expressed gratitude to anyone for loving me?” and I realized it’s been a while. And so that is what I am going to do. But I am going to start with the male members of society because I spend most of the time referring to them as selfish, arrogant bastards and maybe this is my way of making it up to them. Plus, father’s day is coming up. But so that they do not feel so special, ‘we’ are going to write this.

To our fathers and everyone else who has been a father figure? I don’t know how you did it. Maybe you left our mothers before we were born or walked out before we were toddlers. Or maybe you stuck it out and taught us to ride a bike, punch the guy who first kissed you. Or maybe you were never really home because you had to work, make ends meet. And maybe we are the best of friends, or maybe we don’t really have any functional relationship. Either way, in whatever way you chose, you have molded us into the women we’ve become. Confident or insecure. Ambitious or lazy. Either way, we owe a huge part of who we are to what you did and didn’t do for us. And maybe some of us are angry at you and some of us owe their very existence to you (not in the literal sense.) but we am going to say thank you. Because you have taught us lessons. And that is the greatest gift a father could give a daughter. For the best fathers out there, you taught us that just because a guy claims he loved you, he didn’t have to get stuff out of you. You taught us that we could always come back home and that you’ll always be there. You taught us that you’ll always catch us when we fall. That you’ll let us sit on your shoulder if we ever needed to reach higher. And for that, there is no guy we will ever love more than we love you. And for the ones who let us down, thank you for teaching us that it doesn’t matter how broken you are, that is as whole as you will ever need to be. And for that, happy father’s day.

To our brothers. And cousins. And everyone who has threatened the guys crushing on us. Thank you. But sometimes you should mind your own business. I will admit this is going to be difficult to write because I do not have brothers, but I have amazing cousins. And yeah, we do not talk as much, but I know they have my back. And honestly that is all I can say. And to my friends who are brothers, thank you for being such bullies, for not doing house chores, to sometimes yelling it to our faces that you are better than us. We know you mean well.

To the guys that broke our hearts. Some parts of us still hate you. Some of us are not over you. Some of us are crazy. We have stalked you, logged into your Instagram, and deleted the pictures we took together. And some of us don’t really care about your existence. Either way, thank you. Thank you for teaching us that we could endure pain and still get out alive. Thank you for fueling our creativity, for the soppy love poems we wrote, for the songs that reminded us of you, for the drunk texts we sent or not. For the shots of vodka we took, for the times we threw up in the bathroom wishing you were there to hold our hair. For the pills we took, for the times we felt so dead. For the times we kept feeling our chests, convinced that our hearts had followed you. But most importantly, thank you for allowing us to feel the refreshing feeling of healing. To learn to laugh again. To look in the mirror and love our scars. To learn to be ourselves again. Thank you for helping us grow.

To the guys that like us. Thank you. Thank you for helping us get over someone else. Thank you for thinking that our rambling on and on about that pair of shoes is cute. Thank you for removing that eye lash and somehow always thinking it would lead to a kiss. Thank you for texting us, and asking about our days even though we both know you don’t really care. Thank you for making us feel special, for spending money on us even though it earned you a lecture on overspending from your parents. And for the ones we like back. I do not know how you did it. And for the ones we don’t really like. I am so sorry. But if it is any consolation, karma is a bitch. The guy we like, doesn’t even know we exist. That said, stop sending sixteen texts at a time, it doesn’t increase your chances of getting a reply. But I do wish you the best in life. And thank you so much. Because I won’t lie, there are days we were feeling low, and you are the only person who told us they liked us. And I can’t speak for everyone else, but for some twisted reason, I kept those texts.

And to our friends. The genuine kind. Not the ones who think they have been friend zoned. The ones who sincerely care about us. I know most of us can count you on one hand. But you are our favorite kind of people. And yes, our conversations are mostly insults. And yeah, your girlfriends hate us. And some of us hate them too. But most of us don’t really care. Thank you for being there. Thank you for holding our hair while we threw up. Thank you for not leaving us when we broke down over and over again about some loser as you always called them. Thank you for picking up and listen to us complain about literally anything on this planet. Thank you for tucking us in bed even after we got drunk and tried to kiss you. Thank you for always teasing us. Thank you for punching us as a greeting because we just texted you and told you this guy felt us up when we hugged him. Thank you for treating us like one of the boys even though we cannot play those video games and keep scoffing when you talk about some hot chics. Thank you for not losing your patience when we insisted that you teach us to play fifa and then went ahead and just sat there, doing nothing with the controls. And to my best friend, I realize our friendship is somewhat unconventional. But beneath all the insults and faked disinterest in literally anything you say or do, I miss you. And I promise to continue to be a buzz kill till the end of time.