Neither Friends Nor Strangers

Someone I don't what to address

Our college friends used to call us Tom and Jerry. Today, in god’s all honesty, I want to tell them how wrong they were because tom and jerry didn’t leave each other unlike us. 

It’s been over 7 months that I last saw you and over 7 months that I last heard your voice. I never knew that you did not get me and what was my purpose to you.

Is it too much to ask for? 

There are hundreds of things that were left unsaid and there’s always a flashback of uncountable memories that go round and round in front of my eyes whenever someone takes your name. 

Even though we had fought earlier and have had stopped talking to each other but there was always some or the loophole which made us come back to each other.

But this time, I don’t think you have left to come back and I don’t think anything can bring you back to me because leaving, this time, doesn’t have a reason. You just woke up one day and decided to leave.

I think the bracelets we bought for each other and gifted one another will never get to see each other ever again as the ‘bracelet buddies’ arent ‘buddies’ anymore. Yes, it’s tragic!

Without you, days have become continuous heartaches and memories have become a never-ending train of tears. I wish I could stop you and tell you how much you mean to me but you banged the door of separation on my face and killed every mode of communication this time. 

Quite honestly, now, I like friendship just in F.R.I.E.N.D.S because at least when they said “I’ll be there for you”, they meant it unlike us. 

But hey, even if you decide to come back someday, remember I’ll be standing there, just behind the door for you to hug me back. 

Reminder to self: The person, who can make you feel everything good, is also the one who can make you feel like nothing.

Connecting and loving a person isn’t hard. It’s about letting them go after everything they’ve done for you because of everything they’ve done to you. It’s hard because unknowingly, they became this part of your life that you thought was irreplaceable, moments so powerful they will remain frozen in time. It’s harder because somewhere down the line you starting defining every ounce of your self-worth by their opinion of you. Was I that weak? Am I that weak? Yes, I am. And it’s time I admitted that out loud.

It’s like how John Green puts it, “You can never love a person as much as you miss them”. I’ve read the fault in our stars and the only thing that separated two teenagers in love was cancer. But what happens in real life is that the cancer is often metaphorical. The cancer is every mistake you make, the ego and the inability to accept that comes along with it, the inability to forgive and need for validation from the person that gave you all of the above feelings in the first place. No one else can fix this for you. People will often tell you, don’t ever let them go, they’re the best thing that ever happened to you. My mind whispers, weren’t they also the worst?

There’s a reason why quarter-life existential crisis should now officially be a thing. It happens, and I feel it happening to everyone around me. But why does it feel like it’s just me right now? Because I learnt something called dependence. I learnt to lean on someone and when we couldn’t fix the one thing that went wrong, I knew my universe starting feeling like a black hole that was sucking out all the good that was ever there, including the good I created. When you give a part of your life to someone important, you’re subtly giving up a piece of yourself. So when you let them go, you’re letting yourself go too. You will listen to the Scientist on repeat, the line that says, “Oh, take me back to the start”, and because you’ve been the fixer your whole life you will keep trying. You will overanalyze and then teach yourself that people are replaceable. Did I sound harsh? Maybe. Is this the truth though? Yes.

Here is what fucks all of us up from the time we are teenagers: The conditioning that every story must have a happy ending. Because, sadness like everything negative must take a seat in that cupboard like the tea set your mother will only admire but not use. Remember when God punished Adam when he ate the apple? He brought seasons to the earth. Here is where Adam went wrong. The seasons didn’t merely refer to climatic conditions; they were also what people would do to each other. People are like seasons. Everything is happy and full of songs in the spring, summer will show you just how much heat the two of you will take, autumn is where the leaves will wither and so might the bond you share, rain is where you’ll hope that the water will cover up for the tears you can’t stop and then finally winter to give you nostalgia. Now nostalgia is a curse. It won’t just remind you of what you had, but what you have now and who you’ve become.

Here’s what the last person who was part of my fixing process left me:

“Funny how leaving is significant,

Some people actually left,

Some never left,

Quite a few never existed”.

And finally, here’s to the person who made me understand why I go through, what I go through:

“Trauma is what you turn into a masterpiece”.