(Originally published on my Instagram, on 24 February 2026, written in Kyiv, Ukraine)

Dear Ria,

I found this picture of us at a Stars concert so many years ago, with our heads filled with music and dreams.

Dear Ria, last Friday I learned what our name means in Turkish, at least with the way we pronounce it: rüya. It means dream. I wanted to say that it is the most apt meaning for our name because so many of our conversations are shaped by our dreams, not only by what we dream about but also by how we dream.

The last time we were together, in person last December, we spent so much of our time dreaming together. About meeting in Boracay this June, enjoying the sun, and the warmth, and the sunset. About you visiting me in my cottage, hidden in the woods. I will pick you up on the main road with my ATV, because a regular car will not be able to go deep into the forest, where I will live.

You sent me a video of what that cottage could look like. It has a pink door, it has flowers and mushrooms and ducks in the front garden. We loved these dreams and I wanted to text you over the weekend and tell you how beautiful, how perfect our name meant in another language. But why was I too caught up in my own little world of insignificant nightmares, of deadlines, of the slippery roads in this harsh winter, of every single thing that is wrong with this world?

Dear Ria, I could have said all these things to you over the weekend, but I didn’t. I know it wouldn’t even have mattered, but still, this is what I wanted to tell you. Dear Ria, I will still see you. In dreams. In another lifetime or timeline. I love you.

By Rhea Catada