"Untitled" by Bridget Ballo

The day she called my heart started beating so rapidly. Years of friendship down to a simple moment that was so uncontrolled. The loss of a friendship is more heartbreaking than most romantic relationships could ever be. The decision to end the friendship was equally as painful for one another, because we had been friends for years; always there to cry on the shoulder of the other, and then suddenly that comfort was gone. The problem was that we both had become wrong for one another, like many romantic relationships, we stayed with one another out of comfort. Years went by where we had slowly lost the spark and beauty of a once very healthy friendship. She had come up to see me after spending many months away from each other, and seemed to have a great time, or at least so I thought. I asked her, “You're gonna come back right?” and smiled, “Yes of course” and I never saw her again. Looking back, part of me wondered, “why had I asked that question?” if we were like sisters, why should I even question if she would see me again. Time went on and I had heard nothing from my best friend, utter silence and avoidance. The train ride home to a place where so many remaining memories of a dying friendship, broke my heart as I sat on the train taking a midterm. I had not heard a word, but I had the hopeful feeling that if we saw one another we would fix everything together, because we always worked on our friendship together, I mean we had grown up together. The ride down was a time of denial and anger, because I just didn't understand what was going on. When I got home, I was avoided and heartbroken. I went back to my new home, still unsure of what had happened. On the train ride back, so saddened I promised myself that I would never be treated like that, ever again. While it seemed like we had a great relationship, along the way we had become less and less honest with one another, and slowly built a friendship that was built on somewhat of a facade. I’m not sure if either one of us meant to do this, but I felt judged, and she felt alone. We loved one another, but a relationship whether it’s romantic or a friendship simply cannot solely survive on just love, because it just is not enough. When I finally had heard from her, she texted me after months of silence, saying that she could not continue our friendship anymore. I hadn't realized it at the time, but I had gone though the five stages of grief, so when the final text had appeared on my phone, I had reached the final stage of acceptance. Throughout the time of these few months, I was angry, then confused, back to angry, then denial, and finally numbness. After the numbness had left I couldn’t help but accept what had happened. The acceptance was relieving, it ended with us saying goodbye and saying that we loved each other. It may not seem like it makes any sense why we ended our friendship at least to me at moments, but at the time and now it just needed to happen. It was hard because we had spent so much time dreaming of the lives we were going to have, and how they would interconnect, but suddenly we left each other's lives without so much as a real face to face conversation. I learned that you can’t change what you can't control, and we couldn't control us growing apart, because we were always vastly different people. It is always better to end with love, and not resentment. I still love my long lost friend.