You Arrived

With great ceremony and a ridiculous dash of pomp I explained what friendships had done to me. I cataloged the phone call in the dorm lobby and the flying angry batons. I recounted the attempts at reconciliation and the sad and desperate pop of that reconciliation failing. I told you how I had decided that I had all the friends I needed and I was done for the rest of my life.
But then there was you.
With pop ins and laughing until we cried; you arrived.
We fought each others battles and said completely ridiculous things, quietly just in case.

By just being you, a lot of messes and cuts in my heart were healed and soothed in a way I'm not sure would have happened without you. For that alone I am forever grateful.

I've been reading blogs and articles on friendships ending because I can't seem to find the words to describe it without making it sound like we were something more than friends. Because to others, and I suspect even to you, friendship just isn't as important of a relationship. It isn't something to be celebrated when found or grieved when lost. But to me, this is grief.

That's what this is, right? This chasm that has opened between us either by your lack of showing up or by my inability to let the hurt and disappointment go for months and months is the end of friendship.

If you had been a parent, a spouse or a child, or someone that had died it would be different. It would be understandable, this grief. But as it is now, I can't even understand this void that has entered my life. This void where you used to live. How can I expect others too?

I'm working on holding on to the good. On to the silly and serious and the soothing; without trying to decipher the silence and emptiness.
Because I am forever grateful for the friend I had, I love you and miss you while at the same time wondering where exactly we went and when it happened.

(inspired by: Dear Laura)