good grief Friend
good grief Friend, there are no guidebooks for friend break-ups. I didn’t even know I would feel this way until it was already happening and your absence took up almost as much space in my life as you did.
good grief Friend, it’s not like we ever committed to doing life together, but in a way, we did life together for five years. We saw each other every day first at design school and then working at the same company. There were wine nights, road trips, moving apartments, gossiping about boys and helping out when your mom got sick. I guess things can go awry with anyone if you spend that much time together, but I thought we would always find our way back.
good grief Friend, there was a point at which I would tell you everything. Somehow that morphed into a time when it was more important what neither of us was saying.
good grief Friend, I’m still tethered to you by the sadness I feel over the end of our friendship. That and the unannounced selfies of us my Google Photos insists on reminding me of every so often.
good grief Friend, there was never any agreement made that we were done. Just a Facebook messenger chat left unread and an email with no response. Your silence said everything you didn’t.
good grief Friend, not knowing why you decided to step away prolonged the sadness. It felt like I was given a wicked problem to solve without half of the information to define it properly.
good grief Friend, losing you meant losing the person who knew me beyond the persona I was in public. We balanced each other out and were opposites in our insecurities. There was something about us that allowed for seeing and being seen you don’t find very often.
good grief Friend, I couldn’t talk about you to our other friends because they didn’t lose you. Somehow that made all of it harder and easier. Harder because there was no one else who could share the loss of our friendship with me. Easier because I would still get updates about you once in a while.
good grief Friend, it’s not that missing you felt good, but the missing eventually felt familiar and I held on to that for a while because it was much more predictable.
good grief, Friend, is removing you from my social media feeds. I wanted to still be part of your life, not just watch it play out as a spectator.
good grief, Friend, is learning that everyone is comfortable with differing levels of intimacy in relationships, and figuring that out is part of learning what kind of friendship can take place.
good grief, Friend, is realizing that gratitude and grief can coexist. They don’t have to cancel each other out or fight for attention.
good grief, Friend, is accepting that there was no closure and admitting that it’s taken this long to get over because you mattered more to me than most people. We don’t grieve relationships that don't mean anything.
