lately I've been thinking about loss. maybe thinking would be considered putting it mildly because it’s been the only thing on my mind. i think of my first close friend, AK, a girl who left our school in third (or fourth? these details aren't as clear as I would've liked them to be - maybe that's a good thing?) grade because. we used to regularly talk on the phone after school, telling each other about what was for lunch, discuss which subject’s homework we’d start with today, or if we had a swimming class in the evening. the week after she left, I found myself hovering around our landline but there were no calls anymore. just out of nowhere, the phone stopped ringing and it never rang after school again. a few days ago, I decided to look her up. I know it sounds strange, and in any other conversation with any other person I would've said I looked her up because I was curious to see how life had treated her, but in all honesty it was because I missed her. it makes no sense to me either but it was my way of mourning a childhood friendship that never got a chance to flourish to see us become the people we are today.Â
around the same time, I met another girl in my building. a shy, sporty, incredibly incredibly intelligent girl who ended up becoming my closest friend, my sister, my family for almost my entire life after that. or almost. at one point I wondered if I only became so close with GK to replace AK but it wasn’t that. in becoming friends with GK, I learned what an honest, long-lasting relationship needs to survive. trust, respect, confidence, sometimes a little distance, and honest love. in becoming friends with GK, I also learned that any relationship can only survive if both the partners continue to put in the same work year after year. while she taught me what a family feels like, much like my own dysfunctional family, our friendship could not sustain itself after one point. I still think of our growing apart as an amicable divorce. I'm still following her little sister on Instagram, we still wish each other on our birthdays, and I still love her with all of my heart but even though our childhood friendship did get a chance to flourish, it could not keep up with who we had become as adults.Â
I think about losing R. not a day has gone by since 2017 that I haven’t thought about the impact losing him had on me. more than anything, I think about what I would have been like if I had never met him. I would have never known the ease, the comfort, and the peace it comes from holding a person close. I would have never known what it is like to feel lost and slightly alienated all your life and suddenly meet this person who speaks the same language as you. I would have never known that you could meet a virtual stranger and yet feel like you were looking into a mirror. I would have never never what being understood feels like. losing him created a vacuum in my chest that I fill by having conversations with him in my mind. I dream of fortuitously running into him (but can it even be considered that when I almost will it to happen every second day?) and just looking at him. I try to keep the dream of this meeting a secret even from myself, it’s my deepest shame to feel this way about someone after all this time but I just don’t know. on some nights before going to bed, I think of the time he held my hand for the very first time, or our first kiss, or the first time we fucked. on those nights, I also tell myself to find new boys to fuck and hold hands with.Â
