An Ode to Friendship

What does it mean to be a friend? And what does it feel like to lose a friend? And what does meeting them again later in life look like? I’ve been pondering these questions lately.

In my eyes, friendship is something to truly cherish. I look at it with the same intensity and love as I do with other top shelf, essential things that I hold near and dear to my heart, like hot chips and a good (or bad) romcom. There’s an art to friendship. It ebbs and flows and it’s delicate. You can’t grip it too tight in fear it might slip away but you can’t be so willy nilly with it to the point that you forget you have it to hold in the first place.

The building blocks of friendship are unspoken. Not that words aren’t exchanged but that usually nothing super explicit is said like, “hey you. we’re going to be friends.” Or maybe you have said something like that... but chances are that relationship didn’t last too long. (See: tight grip) Most of the time, it begins to form without your conscious awareness. It might go from a few casual conversations to dinner plans to unannounced FaceTimes. It’s a journey from being strangers to being invited into each other’s homes. The beginning of a friendship is an alchemy of being in the right time and place, the right words being exchanged, and both sides taking a risk. It’s special.

Here are some example thoughts I’ve had during the baby stages of a friendship:

How does it feel to talk to them?

How will they respond to my jokes?

I wonder if they are free to hang out.

I hope they like me as much as I like them.

Once the base of a potential friendship is established, that’s when the true fun begins. Subconscious decisions are made about how we prioritize them, how they make us feel, and how we want to make them feel in our presence.

This stage is fun because there are no obligations. We get to ask each other questions, learn where we grew up, how long we’ve lived in the city, what we are excited about… etc. There aren’t many expectations. Sometimes, this person just becomes an acquaintance, someone we stay connected with on Instagram, or a casual friend you text with from time to time.

But, other times—if we’re really lucky—they become a capital F, Friend.

Becoming someone’s capital F Friend is a gift. I often think how beautiful it is that I get to know my friends. The progression from small talk like, “What are you doing this weekend?” to getting “omg dude” texts is so special. You feel close, understood, and seen. You feel accepted.

So, what does it mean to be a Friend to someone? I think that changes as you grow but I believe it means to show up for someone. In early stages of life, it was lending someone a pencil or throwing a football around at recess. It was attending birthday parties and entertaining ideas to make embarrassing lip-sync videos. As I got a little older, it was passing handwritten notes and going to Panera Bread to study for the SATs together. In my late teens and early twenties, it was going out to dinner and lending a shoulder to cry on after a stressful day. 

According to Merriam-Webster, a friend is “one attached to another by affection or esteem.” Affection is “a feeling of liking and caring for someone or something.”

Care. I like that word.

I like it because I relate to it. I care a lot. I care a lot about my hobbies. I care a lot about my work. I care a lot about my family. And I definitely care a lot about my friends.

For the general public, I think losing a friend feels sad. But for me, and other Pisces or people with a lot of feels, I’d say it feels particularly intense. There are different versions of losing a friend and therefore are different levels of sadness you feel when you experience the loss of a friendship.

There are natural losses: friends who drift apart due to moves or to graduating. For one reason or another, you grow apart. No conflict, just time and circumstance.

There are deaths.

And there are falling outs.

These are my personal observations with these three types of losses:

With natural losses, the sadness is usually recognized at a time much later than when the drifting began. Maybe it’s someone you were close with in high school and lost contact with. It’s sad that you aren’t close any more. You remember good memories you had with them. You miss them. You wonder how they are doing.

With deaths, especially unexpected ones, there’s a lot of reflection. Did they know how much I love them? You hope they did. You think back on the last time you talked. You think about the future moments you won’t be able to share. You hold them close to your heart.

With falling outs, the feeling of sadness is so stark. Maybe it doesn’t come until a few days after the event that sparked it all. Maybe it comes right away. Either way, the feeling of loss is dense, like you’re drowning.

There are a myriad of reasons why losing a friend is sad but if I had to boil it down to a word it’d be: care. When you lose someone you care about, it hurts. When you lose the closeness you had to someone, it’s painful. Maybe because you thought you’d always be close to them or that they’d always be around. Whatever the reason, it’s a bit heartbreaking.

I’ve never really been one to hold on to other people too tightly. I’d describe myself as easy going. A go-with-the-flow type, if you will. I’m also a big believer in things happening for a reason. If someone is meant to be in your life, they will. This leads me to the third and final question I posed at the top of this: What is it like to meet a friend again later in life?

I’m only halfway through my twenties but I’ve noticed that there is something really special about those Friends who you’ve known since you chalked up lunch to 2 bags of baked Cheetos and a Taco Pocket. After a few years into the friendship, you might not talk everyday like you once did but whenever you do, it’s like no time has passed. They have seen you go through... some shit. They know you deeply.

Recently, I reconnected with one of my good friends from high school. We got tacos and reminisced about our days playing basketball together, our crushes (current and former), and all the growth we’ve experienced since then. You know those moments that you instantly recognize as special? It was one of those.

It’s magical to rekindle a relationship with someone after years of not speaking and still have so much care for them—to feel like you know someone but to re-meet them all at the same time. In the years since we last spoke, we’ve both come into our own identities in beautiful ways. When we met up, it was clear that we were different people but it was also extremely apparent that, at the core, we were still the same. We were the same kids with immigrant parents, a love for hoodies, and lots of feelings.

During our conversation, I noticed how many things were never verbalized during our initial friendship, like how much we meant to each other and how accepting we were of one another. It was the unspoken thing I mentioned earlier but it also was us not having the vocabulary or life experience to articulate ourselves at that age. I don’t know how long we’re going to be reconnected for but I’m grateful that we did. It feels like something that doesn’t happen very often.

They say people come into your life for a reason, season or a lifetime. The older I get, the more this rings true. Friendships are unpredictable. When we enter those beginning stages, it’s fun and exciting but as with most things that are worthwhile in life, it requires our effort and time. It takes care and patience. It’s difficult to pinpoint why anyone comes into our lives until we can look back in hindsight. And even then, how can we know if they will come back into our lives or not? I guess we can only hope and have faith that if they are meant to be in our lives, we’ll find our way back.

No matter how many friends I’ve made, lost touch or fell out with, I cherish them all. Because what are the odds that we met and took a chance on one another? I consider myself one of the luckiest people on the planet because I have encountered the most incredible people, who I’d only be a fraction of the current version of myself without. My friends taught me about who I am becoming and opened up my heart to love.

If the past two years+ have taught me anything, it’s that our lives are fragile and our time together isn’t guaranteed. Our friendships? They are delicate.

On the top shelf they stay.