Welcome (back) to the pink room. Grab a seat, get comfortable… we might be here for a little while.
I have been wanting to find a way to talk about this here for a while. And I guess today, a day of no particular importance, I, for whatever mysterious reason, finally found the courage. So here it goes. This year, I said goodbye to four of my closest and longest friends. Sometimes I want to say it was mutual. But most times, or perhaps simply my most honest times, l’ll just say I can accept now that it was mutually needed but definitely not mutually desired.
I mean, how can you even break up with friends?
A person who literally holds parts of you that even you can’t quite describe and yet somehow when they are gone. missing. you just know there are parts of you missing too. Perhaps you can guess then it was always me hoping there was some new way to make it work. The loss of such intimate knowledge of self shared in my loving and being loved by another, I once called close friend, felt crushing. Feels crushing.
It is so hard to be seen. To be understood. To have a sense that it is not just you in the world. I mean, that sounds crazy. It is not hard to acknowledge that many people live in a world. which I suppose we ought to say is the world. But do you ever feel like maybe we are all actually living in our own tiny worlds? Like every encounter with another is as cosmic and impossible as world-hopping or time travel. That actually “the world” is only the constant collision of our worlds. That encounter is nothing more or less than a portal or window or ein Blick to an entirely new universe. Similar in one respect to our own. And yet also entirely distinct. That birth is itself a cosmic event. It is one universe birthing another. Each universe suited for one holding every dream and longing and desire. every pain and shame and somehow too our deepest sense of being. our deepest sense of self.
This is why I suppose you can feel entirely alone in a room full of people. Because. You are not in a room full of people. You are in a galaxy. A multiverse. Close enough to see perhaps and yet entirely alone. To reach another requires one learn the art of space-travel. One master multi-dimensional physics. Friendship then comes as a miraculous surprise. An impossibility. For one, it seems, without physics or a mathematically crafted spacesuit, can traverse the barriers of space, time and universe. and.
meet.
A world made for one becomes two or three or four. And suddenly, for the first time, we are seen. Not through a mirror or distorted windows of colliding universes but rather in flesh. We are not alone. a window made portal. We exist. we are made real.
And as someone, who has my whole life struggled to feel real. To have a stable sense of self. It feels nearly impossible for me to imagine letting go of that bridge. That thing that made me feel like maybe I was real. That in their eyes I was whole and solid. So how then is it possible? I mean how can they still exist in the world but not in my world? And worse. They left. on purpose. They took their portal keys on the way out. on purpose
And so. Not even heartbreak is appropriate to describe the weight of this loss. I have chosen delusional instead. frozen time. to not accept is also to not let go of the ledge of a universe drifting quickly away I suppose. afraid to say the words out loud. Because out loud feels impossibly real. And at some point I decided, living in the shadow of ghosts is easier. I knew once I wrote about it. I would be forced to accept that sometimes ghosts are best left to the dead and not the living.
Yet, after many months I am obliged to tell you…
It is apparently possible to intentionally go from loving someone and moving through life in step with them to becoming strangers with no shared present or future.
I know I am not the first person to say that. And also I want you to know that I have been avoiding this post. because what if. I mean what if. Maybe. Those friends change their mind today or tomorrow and then. well then they read this? And it all just gets worse. Because I said it was over. I put my… our dirty laundry on the internet. I don’t think whoever made the internet even knew that was possible. But anyway, there is something about those terribly honest eyes of ink and paper. or virtual ink in our case.
Won’t it make it worse? Won’t it make it even more final? But also what does that say about me? Can I not keep long term friendships? In this past year, I became more “myself” and simultaneously Iost more friends than I have ever lost in all the years prior. And what? I just have to move on? Accept that I have changed alongside the relationships I once had. That none of us are evil and also we just don’t seem to work together anymore.
Don’t you get it? I still love them. I don’t want to become strangers. I don’t want them to become past.
There is not enough literature on friend break-ups. I guess I am lucky that I even had a friend break-up. That my friends had the care to at least tell me up front the truth. To respect the relationship enough to announce its end. It’s seems many times friendships are not even given this dignity. They just end without a word. Friends are disposable so they apparently aren’t worthy enough for a break-up. That very awkward and uncomfortable conversation where you need to have the guts to say to someone you love..I want this life we made together to end. I want now to live it a part from you. specifically. I am grateful I suppose that I have had the privilege then of many break-ups . All relationships with the status of friends. And it hurts. which I suppose you will also know is an understatement.
People can’t be replaced. And yet, they go. And you have to find a way to build a life without them. And this to me is still absolutely absurd. and too. this is exactly what I suppose this year has been. A year I live without the people I had loved the most. where i cherish them only in the past tense while they live in the present. So yeah I want you to know… we broke up.
as friends.
Okay that’s all from me. Till next time. See you back in the pink room again soon!
From the Pink Room 