An Open Letter To My Old Best Friend

Dear Old Best Friend,

“HEY GIRL!

It’s been forever!

How are you? Still in school? Still dating the same guy from last time?

We should get coffee sometime!”

That’s usually how our conversations go, don’t they? This protocol of conversing creating the façade that nothing has changed and we are still on the same page, the same team.
Unfortunately, we are strangers now.
I don’t know you anymore.

It feels so fake. I never thought I would have to be fake with you.
We used to so comfortably talk and laugh with ease.
But now when I see you I can’t breathe.
My mind scrambles and I lose all train of thought.
There are so many things I want to tell you at once, but nothing can come out except the same old lines we say every time we run into each other.
And. It. Kills. Me.
What I really want to say when I see you is:

“Hey, so what’s been going on?
How have you been?

No really.

I’ve heard so many things.

I want to be there for you.

Are you okay?
Do you want to have a sleepover and eat pizza?

I don’t know you anymore.”

If I’m honest, most days I think of you. I wonder how you are and what you are doing. I wonder if school is going well for you. If your new relationships are healthy and are you eating enough?

Are you laughing enough?

Do you have someone to talk to?

Do you think about me too?

Remember all the sleepovers we had? Eating so much candy till we couldn’t breathe.

Or what about the adventures we went on, to water parks and state fairs? Maybe all to movie nights or the tears we shed on dead goldfish. All the time spent whispering over love notes and getting into trouble at school. Do you still laugh about the time we fell down the stairs or when you got gum stuck in your hair? Do you remember how much I cried because you were going to another school?

Do you remember me?

I hope you remember because I’m barely grasping these threads of memories.

My dear old best friend, I can’t rightly call you an “Ex-best friend” because we never broke up.

Maybe it would have been easier to lose you if we had some big falling out.

Then we could have officially said, “I’m done with her, I’ve moved on, and I don’t need her.”

Instead, we just faded away with no closure, leaving everything open-ended.

Our memories disintegrating, our hearts never really disconnecting, but still waiting with arms wide-open hoping that maybe, just maybe one will return to the other.

We interact on social media just enough to keep some semblance of a connection.

Somehow it always gives me that little feeling of hope that maybe someday I’ll reconnect with you.

I pull up your Facebook or Snapchat and as my fingers hover over the keyboard I freeze.

I freeze because once I breach this gap, I can’t go back.

Either I have something relatively interesting or important to talk to you about or be prepared to awkwardly watch you slip away from me a little more.

What do I say to you to let you know that I am still here?

Would you even care?

I don’t know you anymore.

They say every seven to ten years the body replaces all your cells. If that’s true you are doubly a stranger to me.

Still, I punish myself and scan over your social media, I see you living life without me, then I feel this ache in my heart.

Having birthdays and holidays, going through boyfriends and breakups, going through college and graduating, finally landing that big girl job.

It hurts a little, not because I’m jealous, but because I don’t feel like it is my right to reach out to you anymore. To be able to celebrate your victories and support you in your falls.
Maybe I hold back because I feel I’ve waited too long to even really try, or maybe because I’ve convinced myself that you’ve moved on and don’t need me anymore.

I want to know how much you’ve changed, how much you’ve grown. I want to laugh about all the good and bad experiences we’ve had with each other and all the ones we’ve missed out on together.
Time has gone by though.
You have your own life and I also have mine.
You are a stranger to me.

I don’t know you anymore.

I do know that I still love and care about you very much.
I may not have you any more to keep me company, but I do have what’s left of these memories to look back to when I am missing you.
I hope you do too.
I hope you smile.

I hope life is treating you well.

So, let’s get coffee and catch up sometime.

Love You,

Your Old Best Friend