In my ethnic household, friendship was always considered to be a pale imitation of family. Family first, friends second. If anything, the word “friend” evoked some suspicion, caution, and wariness. You were meant to enjoy their company, but not get too close to the point where their problems affected your psyche. I vividly recall when the family astrologer did a tarot reading for me back when I was fifteen. “Do not keep too many close friends in your life— friendships do not last, and that will hurt”, she had warned. At the time, I never once considered the impermanence of it all; as far as I knew, the people around me were my ride-or-die.
There is something so intrinsically human about creating new bonds that didn’t exist since birth, weaving the strings of love yourself. We were never meant to be solitary beings, and friendships are proof of that. Because what do you mean that an otherwise stranger, whom you met by utter circumstance (or fate, destiny, fortune— if you want to call it that instead), is now someone you choose to trust with your life, your memories, and your vulnerabilities?
The word ‘love’ commonly denotes romance and attraction, rarely the devotion poured into friendship— platonic love is somehow viewed as the lesser form of the four-letter word. And yet, it is the end of platonic friendships that I mourn with a searing intensity far stronger than the anguish of any heartbreak or unrequited love.The oldest story that humanity felt was worthy of writing down was not one of romance, but of a man coming to terms with his own mortality all because he lost his best friend. You see, the end of a friendship is like a tumour that rapidly proliferates until it has metastasized to the heart, rendering you with an immobilizing, aching nostalgia. It doesn’t happen in one day, for you can see it coming from a mile away.
The anticipatory grief of dissipating friendships is piercing— you realize it when you’re hanging out together and it’s uncomfortable and all you can do is reminisce and reflect and glance back on bygone memories, too weary and too much of a stranger to each other to create new ones. It’s like someone whittled down the ends of puzzle pieces so they don’t fit together anymore like they used to. Growing up, and growing apart. Our lives experience a sort of divergent evolution, like the branches of a tree that extend up and out, although once bound to the same trunk. Now separated, yet once connected, through the bonds of memory.
Maybe it is just as integral to the human experience to make friends as it is to lose them. I just wish I had known this earlier so that we could’ve said our proper goodbyes before parting ways. But I reckon that’s a part of life’s many lessons. A small part of me still hopes that the absence of a goodbye insinuates a prospect of return, but maybe that’s wishful thinking.
I still carry my friends with me, long after they’ve taken the exit door in my life. The residuals of memories, secrets, longings, and goals we once shared still linger, along with the heartache, grief, and sorrow (they come as a 2-in-1, no returns). It’s bitter, without the sweet, and I often wonder why it’s so hard to let go, to forget. But then again, I have always been a profoundly sentimental person— perhaps I’m the one holding onto those memories with clenched fists, like a reluctant child.
There is also an overwhelming sense of gratitude. How beautiful is it that our paths have crossed even once within these eighty or so years we have on this earth? Although our sole means of communication is now stilted exchanges over text and an annual “Happy Birthday!” message, there was a time when they were one of the few people who wholly knew me.
A part of me hopes that all of my friends (that were and that are) are reminded of me sometimes because they cross my mind frequently.
“You cooked this meal for me 2 years ago and nothing I’ve tried since tastes the way you made it.” “That TV show we both used to like? I rewatched it again and still remember your silly commentary.” “This book was so good and I wish I could share my feelings about it with you but I don’t exist to you as anything but a memory.”
Each tick of the clock is a second more of increasing distance between us. And although I fear there will soon come a time when we will have been strangers longer than we were friends, I can still feel the love we shared, it is bright and vibrant as ever. The love still endures. That I am sure of.