I do feel rather sorry for not reaching out earlier, for not saying this a week after we stopped contacting but I suppose it is better late than never. Or is it?
There have been times when I sat down and looked around me, wondering what life would be like if you were still around. It is during these times that a wave of anguish floods me and I wondered how we lost touch in the very first place.
"Well, life happens", they say.
And for a period of time, I believed them, I thought that way too.
Then I realised, maybe "life happens" is just a fanciful way of saying that we are no longer each other's priorities. Very much like how "I love you, mummy" was no longer a MUST-DO before bedtime after we turned ten.
Perhaps, when school ended, we no longer served each other a purpose. We need not survive school together anymore, we survived it, so why bother? We moved on to meet new people, forge new relationships, new friendships with the people that now surround us. And they too will serve their purpose; to listen to you, help you through tough times, eat with you in the cafeteria... and you too, for them.
Was our friendship simply based on servicing each other then? An unspoken contract of sorts, a done deal?
Or was it something more? A genuine shared interest over cakes, sports, music or the arts...
How did we lose touch?
I figured that perhaps the first step to losing a friend is realising that we have no need for them anymore. The realisation may be subconscious, but it's there. And when we fall back on each other's priority list, person by person, name by name, we start making excuses when it comes to turning up for plans. Soon enough, the excuses run dry and the next question follows jointly-why even make plans to reconnect again?
You forget about the person for a bit, the imprints that he/she had in your lives lay buried beneath the many experiences you have had in recent times.
But hold on for a second, since when did we need reasons to meet up anyway? Was there even a need for logic when we decided to "meet you downstairs in 5" for ice-cream, or talk incoherently with emojis on our group chats that still exists somewhere down the list? There wasn't a need for logic- it was fun and that was it.
Maybe that was our purpose- to inject some life and laughter into each other's lives.
So what next?
What happens after we lose a friendship? What happens after we transition from birthday surprises with cakes, balloons and handmade cards to "Happy Birthday!" (only after Facebook reminded us) on social media?
What happens next?
We go on with our lives, memories fossilized into photographs that are kept in photobooks- on a folder hidden somewhere in our harddisks.
And somedays, when I sit up late at night or walk past the cafe that we used to frequent after school, I smile a little sad smile and I think of you. My fingers will then scroll through the countless group chats that we have, pausing at your name- or the group chat that we yet gotten around to quitting, as if hoping that we will one day finally decide to reunite.
What happens next, is this desire to be friends with you again.
But has this friendship really been lost? Can it vanish into thin air? Or has it merely froze in time, ready to be back to what it was again?
I couldn't figure the answer out alone.
So here's my letter to you, all of you, friends from ages ago.