nobody tells you how to get over a friend

a letter to the people i left behind (or vice versa)

Nobody tells you how to get over a friend.

Nobody warns you about the empty space they leave behind, about the way your life rearranges itself to fill the gaps where they used to be.

There are no songs about the quiet grief of friendship loss, no dramatic climaxes in books, no grand goodbyes. It just happens. Slowly, quietly.

Like a book that was once your favorite but now collects dust on a shelf, still there, still a part of your history, but no longer part of your present.

I think about it more than I should, not in a way that consumes me, but in a way that lingers. Like a song I half remember but can’t quite hum correctly.

Like something just on the edge of my mind, almost there, but not quite.

I wonder if you ever do the same, if you ever think about the moments we had, the memories we made, the small, seemingly insignificant details of what it was like to have each other in our lives.

I miss the way things used to be, but I don’t know if I miss you or if I just miss the version of us that existed back then.

I think about my university days, how much I used to enjoy spending time alone on the balcony before class, the way the air smelled different in the early mornings, crisp and full of possibilities.

I remember the way the society meetups turned into restaurant-hopping, how we made even the most ordinary moments feel like an adventure.

We laughed at stupid things, had deep conversations over coffee, planned trips we never took, and stayed out late just to delay the inevitable parting at the end of the night.

And then, one day, it just stopped.

Not all at once. There was no final conversation, no confrontation, no dramatic falling out. Just a slow unraveling, a shift so gradual I didn’t even notice it happening until it was already done.

First, the texts became less frequent. Then, the plans started falling through.

Then, silence.

Not an intentional one, not an angry one. Just the kind of silence that creeps in when two people slowly drift apart, when life pulls them in different directions, when the effort to stay in touch feels heavier than the weight of letting go.

Nobody prepares you for that kind of loss, the kind where there’s no closure, no definite ending, just an absence where something used to be.

I sometimes wonder what you’d say if we met again.

If we sat across from each other at a café years later, would we talk like no time had passed, or would we be two strangers with nothing left to say?

Would we laugh at the same jokes, or would the silence between us say more than words ever could?

I don’t know how to grieve a friendship. There is no guide, no set of rules, no funeral for what we lost. And yet, some days, it feels like a kind of mourning, a quiet, unspoken sorrow for something that once was, something that mattered, something that shaped me in ways I can’t fully explain.

It’s strange, isn’t it? How we carry people with us even when they’re gone.

How we keep pieces of them tucked inside our memories, in the songs they once played for us, in the places we once went together, in the small habits we picked up from them without realizing.

It makes me wonder how much of me is actually mine and how much is just borrowed from the people who have come and gone.

Maybe that’s why, on some days, I feel like I am not a whole person.

Like, I left too much of myself in people who are no longer here, in childhood friendships that should have lasted forever but didn’t.

And it’s not that I don’t want to move forward. It’s just that sometimes, I don’t know how.

I see my friends, my family, all moving forward: getting married, getting jobs, building new lives, creating new friendships. And I feel like I am standing still.

Like I missed the train that everyone else caught, and now I am just here, wondering if I will ever catch up.

It’s a weird feeling, this in-between, this not-quite-moving, not-quite-stillness. I try to remind myself that life moves at different paces for everyone, that just because I feel stuck now doesn’t mean I always will be.

But some nights, when everything is quiet, and my mind is too loud, I wonder if I will ever stop feeling like I am waiting for something that may never come.

But despite everything, despite the distance, despite the years, I still care. And I always will. Because that was my part of the deal.

I don’t know if you still think about me. I don’t know if you ever miss the way things used to be. But I do. And maybe that’s just how it is.

Maybe some friendships are not meant to last forever, but that doesn’t mean they don’t matter.

Maybe some people are just meant to be part of your life for a little while, to shape you, to change you, to leave their mark on you before they go.

And I guess that’s okay.

buy me a coffee

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