The past month, I’ve been more social than normal. At times, I feel like a college freshman — except I’ve gotten more selective with doling out the “friend” card. Being in the same club or sharing a hobby just doesn’t cut it anymore. Layer on the “close” label, and I’m even more picky.
When I think of the friends who have entered the space of close, there’s only a handful. After all, I don’t have much room in there. Don’t have the resources to expand it either. Limited space means intimacy is non-negotiable, but also means I can only fit a few people at a time.
For one to step in, one must step out.
When I open Instagram and see he’s posted a story, I always tap. I know I’m going to get washed with melancholy, but I can’t help myself.
Can melancholy be positive? The definition implies it can’t, but I like to believe it can.
Sometimes it’s a repost, other times it’s his own. Either way, when I see his face, I can’t help but get emotional. Even as I type, even as I reread this section, the tears well up behind my eyes.
I blink them away.
Distance has been a factor in our friendship since high school ended. Though we were rarely in the same room, we were always in each other's hearts. Closeness felt even through a screen.
Now, the distance is more than dots on a map. It's felt in my heart. How I peer into his life like it's a TV show, rather than show up as the main character’s close friend.
I suppose like any good show, there’s gotta be storylines you never see coming. The ones that if you stumble upon them on Reddit or overhear, you can’t believe. That’s how improbable they seem.
How much you want them to be.
I believed — no, I said P would be the best man at my wedding. It’s how I referred to him throughout college. Something he doesn’t know, and won’t unless he reads this.
If you do, I miss you.
I can’t say I knew friend breakups were a thing, at least not with close friends. I’ve had those friendships that fade away — a mutual understanding and agreement on temporary. The ones you know are there for a season, their departure already written into the friendship. The ones you met in a sport or club. As neighbors on the block or floor. From the start, you know something doesn’t feel quite right. Values, perspectives, character, or a dash of everything. But you smile along anyway because you know it won’t last.
With close friends, it’s different. They arrive like anyone else, but find a way to hang around for more than a single season. As if they have plot armor or something. They watch you grow and change. Different hairstyles, different relationships. Different interests, different careers. Unlike others, they don’t balk at your transformation. They embrace it.
They embrace you.
The exuberant joy, crushing lows. These friends, in their commitment to you, bear witness to everything. And you let them.
You let them in.
We paint a picture that close friends are a forever-type thing. You know, till death do us part. Spongebob and Patrick. That once you’re close, you’re close. Set till the days of sitting in wicker chairs on the porch reminiscing about the past.
Inexperience will do that to you. You want to believe in the sublime nature of firsts. You want to believe they’ll never end.
Until they do.
Growth is different, opposite. Inexperience leads you to believe it ends at a certain point. Like you’re 25 and finally conclude the extra inch or two you’ve been holding out for ain’t gonna happen.
In reality, self-growth is never-ending. It happens at different times, different rates. The only constant is it shows up when it wants, without your input. You won’t know when it’ll arrive.
Until it does.
Growth showed up for me toward the tail-end of college. When an on-off crush situation forced me to confront my shadow for the first time. Bring to light everything I’d tucked away from myself my entire life.
Through everything, P showed up. Never impatient, never trying to give me advice. He listened, asked questions. Our friendship a space for me to embrace change.
Because he embraced me.
Before I knew how to myself.
It’s this quality I learned from P and brought into adulthood. A season that would continue the growth I had concluded was an unexpected last couple of inches. Discovering deeper truths of who I am and have always been. Adding depth to the values I held. Changing my perspectives toward life and my future. Unfolding an unseen path in a different direction.
Away from P.
Change inserted a wedge between P and I. One that time deepened, driving us further apart. I wasn’t blind to the distance, P wasn’t either. We felt it in the uncanny way humans can when something is coming to an end. But I kept wanting to show up anyway.
Just as P had done for me.
Neither of us did anything wrong. Neither of us could’ve predicted this storyline. No one could’ve. We’re all monkeys playing darts in the dark. That’s life.
I could say we hit a fork in the path. That one of us went left, the other right. But that’s not painting an honest picture. In reality, each of us walks a unique path in life. Close friendship is just walking together in the same direction. Your paths happening to twist and turn in the same way at the same time.
But there’ll be moments in life when your path turns, and theirs doesn’t. You can choose to follow your own, or spend a lifetime trying to pave one in the same direction as theirs. Holding on, not out of loyalty to the past, but stubborn refusal to accept the present.
Where you are, who you are now.
Growth implies momentum. Requires you to shed layers of your past. Not because you don’t like the color or style, but because they don’t fit anymore. You’ve outgrown them.
Your friendship.
My gosh, that’s a hard pill to swallow.
To imagine parting ways with those who have shown up more than most. Been intimate with you more than most. They’re a part of your life as much as you’re a part of theirs. To let go of your friendship is to let go of part of yourself.
But for the new to step in, the old must step out.
A melancholy to experience with a frown, or with a smile.
When I open P’s stories, I reflect on my own. On all the seasons of my life he was a part of. The moments we shared.
Chasing him around the block with a sword the first time we hung out.
Sitting in my car during a thunderstorm. Eating sandwiches, talking into the night.
The friendship we had is rare, that I say with certainty. A friendship people spend a lifetime searching for, but never come close. To have experienced it at all, I consider a gift.
That despite our finale, I got to call him my future best man for a few seasons.
I smile.
there was so much of this that resonates with me. thank you for sharing this piece and being vulnerable.