Grieving lost friendships!

I sometimes wonder why we don’t accord similar level of importance to friendships as we do to romantic relationships. I like the social awareness around the space and respect given to grieving romantic relationships – lost relationships, failed relationships, complicated relationships, long distance relationships or relationships that just drifted apart. I like the lack of awkwardness in asking, ‘What are we’, ‘It feels different’, ‘What changed? We changed. Can we work on some things?’, ‘I need some more love. Can you give it to me?’. While the whole beauty of friendship might lie in the lack of concrete definitions and social norms, I often miss the definitiveness of romantic relationships in my friendships. How close are we? What are we? Are we Friday night drinking friends, are we Sunday morning deep-conversation friends? Are we friends-of-convenience filling our lonely lives with some insincere affection? Are we soulmates of some sort? Are we I’ll-always-have-your-back friends? Are we all of them? Are we some?

I believe in soul families, not soul mates. I hold a lot of people– most of them friends, dear to me. Falling apart from them is painful, often more painful than breaking up with my romantic partners. However, I’ve missed being able to grieve it, being able to talk about it. I miss taking the refuge of music, movies and poetry to grieve about friendships lost – the way I can for romance gone bad. I miss being accorded a shoulder to cry for all the friends that got left behind. I hate my pain being dismissed because drifting apart from friends is such an ‘expected’, ‘natural’ part of life. I wonder why my grief over a break-up of one-year relationship gets more validation versus my multi-year friendship gone sour. I hate my grief not being validated enough.

How to talk about the pain of not being able to hug your friend as often as you’d want to, of missing growing old with them, of not being able to call them up to tell them about your day, of not having the right to call them after a bad day. When friendships end, the reasons are rarely defined – most times they just end mysteriously or sometimes they don’t end at all but just fade away. Sometimes, you just drift away because of distance or evolved priorities. Sometimes, you just grow out and become incompatible – you grow out of the activities, values or commonalities that held you together. Sometimes, you just hurt each other but neither of you want to have the difficult conversation to address the issue, so it let it go till both the problem and the person start hurting less. Sometimes, you just get too busy to make time for all the friends you have made.

It irks me, though, to not be able to get that closure for myself – to go through old pictures, old memory lanes, old cards and wonder, “I miss them. Do they miss me too?” Sometimes, I type out a whole message and then delete it because it seems too corny. I want to reach out to an old friend and say, ‘Hey, can we work on our friendship? Can we pick it from where we left it off?’, but I fear lack of reciprocity and drop the idea.  I like how it is socially acceptable to be embarrassing with your ex-romantic partners. I miss being able to send awkwardly corny messages to my drifted friends without it sounding annoyingly cheesy.

As I am writing this, I am wondering why I care about these social constructs at all. I am not sure. Looks like I am not all that non-conformist as I believe I am, and the years of social conditioning has played its part. What is the point of this post? This is probably me validating my pain for all the lost/distanced/forgotten friendships that I am grieving, and extending a virtual hug and shoulder to everyone in similar shoes – "Your emotions are valid, and it is okay to feel deep pain for lost friendships."

A letter to the girl who radiates happiness!

Dear best friend,

It has been two long years in Hyderabad and I was contemplating over how I have changed as a person; over things, experiences and people who got added to my life. Surprisingly, what stood out in the entire list was you and this fact compelled me to write something about you – about us, disregarding how cheesy it might sound. I seldom write about people, because how can you put down what someone means to you in words and do justice to those emotions, but, today, I want to try.

I remember seeing you at office for the first time – bright blue shirt and black trousers, poker straight hair, make up so heavy that it could give one of those models a deep complex, heels so high that I wondered if you need to directly rush to a party right after office; and I immediately stereotyped you to be this loud Delhi girl I can never become close friends with. Funny how first impressions and be so misleading at times!

Destiny and a bit of conscious maneuvering of it got us together as flat mates and I want to write about how much I fell in love with you with every week that passed. Is it too cheesy already? Oh, I am a cheesy and mushy person – I pretend to be this cool girl, but I am so not her.

I want to build up and then reach this point where I tell you that I have found my soul mate in you, but an impatient person that I am, I will blurt it out already – ‘Honey, I have found my soul mate in you.’ I want to recollect incidents, you know those incidents when you look at your partner and think, ‘He’s the one.’ I want to talk about the ones when you made me feel that you’re the one.

I remember those mornings after some reckless drinking nights when I walked up to you with regret, sobbing softly. Sometimes I would walk up with a vomit-engulfed T-shirt, sometimes with a blacked-out memory, telling you, ‘My life is over. I have turned into one of those girls I hated.’ Thank you for telling me outright that you’re not going to say that it is fine, and it happens, and it is okay to be young and reckless. I want to thank you for being brutally honest and telling me that I am turning into a shitty person and that you don’t like this person. Thank you for loving me just enough and not being the forgiving and endearing person that I wanted you to be at that time. Thank you being the friend I needed, not the one I wanted.

Thank you for being at the first row for all my plays and performances and cheering for me every time, every single time. It means a lot, you know to have loved ones telling you that they’re proud of you. Thank you for the jewelry, make up and dresses that I borrowed every time. I often wonder what I’d do without your wardrobe.

I remember the days when I went through an existential crisis and forgot how to smile for days, and even weeks. Thank you for helping me get out of it to figure out who I am. Thank you for shaking me up and telling me that I’m your hero and that you derive your strength from me.

How can I forget my fracture and the way you cared for me like a mother – taking my tantrums, cooking for me, cancelling your parties and working from home because I was being a baby. The time when I was admitted to the hospital for the viral fever which chose to not leave me for three straight weeks. Thank you for taking my tantrums when I refused to talk to you because you left me alone for an hour to have dinner. I behaved like a cranky little baby. Thank you for letting me a baby, then.

Thank you for paying heed to my whims and remembering the little details that I whimsically throw around sometimes. You remembered that I once whimsically stated that I want to have a swing where I can sit and read, and went ahead and gifted me that swing on my birthday. I remember staring at a Winnie the Pooh soft toy for five minutes and claiming that I want it. It was both funny and flattering how you without another thought walked into the store and bought the Pooh. I remember being cranky and telling you that I am bored of you and that I need new friends. You smiled and patiently took my uncalled temper, went an extra mile and suggested some new people whom I can be friends with. I often wonder if I deserve this kind of love – the kind of love which spoils you. Thank you for spoiling me, sometimes.

I reminisce over our breakfast discussions, about my bizarre ideas of love and life and you understanding those ideas. It’s strange how we’re two extremely different people and yet understand each other so well. Thank you for supporting me on my solo trip despite knowing how reckless a person I am. Thank you for gifting me a solo trip package with a book, a diary, chocolates and flashlight. These little things, these little things that you do for me – they are everything!

I often wonder how some people continue to love me despite my expression of love being so vague. Thank you for understanding my expression of love even when it was so indirect. Thank you for understanding that I love you even when I wasn’t by your side for days on end when you were sick – emotionally and physically. Thank you for understanding that I love you the same even when I failed to plan your birthday even half as meticulously as you planned mine. Thank you for understanding my quirks and idiosyncrasies, accepting them and loving me despite them and sometimes, for them. Thank you being the person I can share my dreams and stories with, thank you for waiting for me at dinner. Thank you for being my person.

My vocabulary is not capable of doing justice to my emotions, but I’d just like you to know that I feel extremely lucky to have you in my life and you belong to the group of people whom I call mine and take for granted, sometimes. I love you!

I forgot to mention one thing – you radiate happiness. It falls off your shining cheeks, glittery eyes and infectious laughter and everyone in your radar gets a gift of that happiness. You can walk into a dank, dingy room and brighten it up with your smile. You are amazing! I think I have already crossed my threshold of the number of cheesy words I can use in a day.

Love,

The girl with the fake accent