The Ephemerality of Friendship

Memories die of old age too. They become old and blur and then they are lost, in an abyss. But then on a gloomy rainy day, when you wake up from your afternoon nap, a part of it sweeps its way back. You feel lost. You don’t know what to do with it. It makes you feel a little too much, and sometimes too old too. 

I was reminded of my kindergarten friend today. I don’t remember a lot about her or our times together. Her name used to start with ‘J’. I don’t remember how we became friends or how did we drift apart. But I remember her telephone number; it used to end with triple eight.  In those days, we used to have landlines. I remember her father picked me up from school, once, when papa was not in town. One day, I started crying in front of the school and refused to go inside because someone told me that she is sick, and won’t be coming today. These random reminders overwhelm me for the ephemerality of friendship is more visible to me, today, than it ever was.

Everyone says that you meet a lot of ‘temporary’ people in your twenties. I am not sure, though, if ‘temporary’ is the right word to describe these relationships. I miss an old friend. Some friends drift apart because they move to different cities and find new people and make new homes.  But this friend is not one of them. We chose to stop talking to each other. We made a choice to not be in each other’s lives for it seemed like the best option. I still miss her sometimes. And when I do, I go back and read the letters and postcards that we sent to each other in good times and also the emails that we shared in the times that weren’t that great.

I am not a hoarder, in fact, the opposite of it. I delete old WhatsApp chats just so that I can forget whatever good or bad happened in the past. But I still have her letters and emails. The weird thing about memories is that even the good ones make you sad because they are all in the past, and no matter how much you want you can’t go back to them.  There was a lump in my throat while I was scrolling through the pictures in my gallery. When I was living these moments, I thought they are going to last for forever. We made plans of attending each other’s wedding and now we don’t even call to ask each other’s well being

. 

These friends come into our lives and for a brief period of time, a few months or years, become a part of us and we become a part of them. We pick on each other’s words and habits and it all happens just very organically, without any effort. We miss them even if we don’t want to be with them anymore. By the time they leave, we become different people with the experiences that change us for forever.

There is nothing temporary about these friendships. They stay with you even after the people leave.