friendships are harder to lose than your relationships
Friendships are hard. They are hard to form, harder to keep, and the hardest to not lose. Because people change, people grow apart, people can be there for a season, and people can be there for a reason. And then if you don’t try or neither try to make it work past the season, past the reason, past your conflicts or growth or change, then its over. And then you become
strangers again.
From a very young age, I knew how critical keeping the sanctity of my friendships was. In elementary school, I would hand out a quarterly survey to each friend. I would tell them to rate me, how I can improve, and how to do better as a friend. One could have seen this as trying to be the best friend that they could have, but it was masked under deep insecurities about myself.
But that’s another story for another day.
By the time I reached high school, my friends were everything. I could be my authentic self around them. It weathered through petty high school drama and tribulations. Our bond remained strong.
At this point, I’ve experienced loss. Friends have disappeared along the way, more so the natural progression of life rather than a falling out or mutual understanding. So when I had my first heartbreak friendship, I was not fully prepared for how it would make me feel.
My mind fails me on how Kat and I became friends and frankly how we got as close as we did. It was probably in-between us both failing Spanish and math that we kicked off some kind of trauma bond. Kat was popular, not in a Regina George way. She was simply likable. Her radiance extended beyond the magnet hall kids and onward to become the obvious choice for class president. Yet amongst hundreds, I was chosen to get to know her more.
Although our friendship never fully extended beyond school walls, our love for each other flourished. I have captured her laughs and silliness in film. Her doodles became a personal post-it note flip book. Despite her art always being in high demand, as an 18th birthday and parting gift, she painted me something so beautiful, along with a note of how much she appreciated the person I could be in her life.
Then the cracks began to show.
When college started, she stayed home, and I not too far. So I would come home frequently for a weekend or two. Each time I would tell her I’m in town in hopes to catch up. And each time we would secure a date, that would later fall through. But lo and behold, there she was, with someone else. One of her many friends posted to instagram.
I told my mom this, aggravated and confused which led me to learn one of most important lessons in my life. She said:
People will choose to want to make an effort to be in your life. If they don’t, then they are no longer for you.
The reality was staring right in my face. Suddenly I was matched with denial and anger but in reality, grief.
I was already beginning to mourn what I knew was lost.
I reached out my hand several more times before I decided to do what I never thought I’d be brave enough to do.
I told her honestly about how I felt about being on the backend.
Kat responded with:
“Asia, I’m so sorry. I just know that you’d always be there!”
To her, I was the one who waits. I was the one that was in love with you but not in love with me, but you knew I would still be there if you ever felt the same. I was pantry food. I was a benchwarmer. I was the gum in the back pocket.
I have never felt so hurt by a friend before.
In between my rage and sadness, I wrote how inexcusable a statement like that was. After all these years, that was the role I was boiled down to?
Kat ran.
I never got a response back. As much as it pained me, I’m glad to have received nothing rather than an empty apology.
I didn’t reach out to end our friendship. I reached out to mend it. But there was nothing else to be said.
I thought about my surveys, and how much I wanted to rectify what I now thought was my fault.
Kat replied back 2 years later. She was too scared to talk to me for a long time. She voiced she didn’t know how to respond at the moment. She didn’t realize what she had done and needed to reflect. At that point, what was done was done. My heart had hardened, but I let her say what needed to be said.
The dust has settled on our breakup for me. Kat’s artwork remains in boxes that I can’t let go of. Her art is beautiful, just like the soul I once thought was as well. They, however, are merely memories of the thought she once put into our friendship.
We’re Instagram friends now. You know the ones who just like your posts and occasionally comment? That is my version of being
strangers again.
I analyze my friendships now by what my mother said. Adult friendships are complicated, however. People have other lives, hundreds of miles away, with problems and stress you might not even know about. But despite all of that, I still believe that if they, if we, make that choice to put in the effort
then it would have all been worth it.
