i never pictured a version of my life that didn’t include you
on friendships that have faded over time
you know those friends you’re inseparable with for a while…sharing inside jokes…spending every weekend together…and then, as the years go by you just slowly drift apart?
maybe it’s someone you were close with in high school, and then you go off to college and start living different lives. or you graduate, and one of you moves to a new city for work while the other goes somewhere else. or (as humans do) you grow…shift…evolve…start developing new interests…and naturally gravitate toward different people.
there’s no bad blood….no hard feelings…just time passing, and people growing older.
today i was thinking about this guy i used to be close friends with back in college. we met freshman year and clicked instantly: like the stars had aligned the minute i stepped onto the nyu campus. people always talk about love at first sight in a romantic sense…but i really believe it can happen with friendships too. sometimes, you just know when you meet someone that they’re going to matter to you. and he did.
some of my fondest memories from college include him: picnics in tompkins square park, rolling cigarettes on park benches, messy drunk nights out (that no matter where we went we'd always somehow end up at lucy’s)…just classic shit one does when going to school in new york city.
after graduation, we kept in touch for a year or two, but as my interests started to shift and i slowly stepped away from music (a space he remained deeply rooted in) our friendship naturally began to fade.
it didn’t happen all at once…it was gradual.
at first (right after we graduated) we still talked a lot. texts…regular facetime calls…little check-ins here and there…
but over time, the messages came less and less. from catching up often…to just the occasional “happy birthday.”
and then…even that stopped.
there was never a moment where we decided not to be friends. no falling out, no fight. just a quiet, mutual shift: both of us moving into different chapters of our lives.
a year ago, i found myself at tenets of the trees. this isn't really a place i frequent (i've only been there maybe...three times total) but every single time i've been there...i’ve always run into someone weirdly obscure from my past. the second time i was there, i ran into him.
and talking to him felt… so fucking strange.
through our small talk, i found out he’d moved to silverlake a few years ago from new york (which honestly…i could already tell just by the way he was dressed: slouchy carhartt pants, a wife beater, hands decked out in silver rings, and a bunch of patchwork tattoos that definitely weren’t there the last time i saw him). he told me about his new boyfriend, how he recently landed a job as a pa on some show, and how he’s in the process of writing a script for a short film he’s making (a complete detour from the music maker he was the last time i saw him).
when i asked if he was still into making music, he said he’d outgrown his love for it and just one day…decided he wanted to work in film and tv. i filled him in on how i’d changed too: how i’d switched gears, got really into vintage clothing and secondhand shopping...
it was maybe a 7-ish minute catch-up, and once we got through the basics, this weird, quiet tension settled in for about two minutes before we both awkwardly hugged goodbye and went our separate ways. and in that moment…it hit me: the versions of ourselves that once meshed so well…just didn’t really exist anymore.
part of me was sad that, upon seeing him, i didn’t feel that same spark or familiarity i used to. but that’s the price you pay for evolving throughout life.
i went home shortly after that interaction: partially because i was tired and it was almost my bedtime, but also because seeing him made me kinda sad…as it confirmed that our compatibility had flatlined completely.
about a month ago, i was driving to a doctor’s appointment and i had my phone on shuffle playing music. and as i was cruising along the 101…“nakamara” by hiatus kaiyote came on. the minute those first two beats hit, i instantly thought of him…as so much of our friendship was rooted in our love for hiatus kaiyote.
and as the song played while i drove…it got me thinking: when he puts on that super cool shirt i encouraged him to get at beacon’s closet early in our sophomore year (the one right by the new school)…does he think of me? or when a slideshow of photos from that trip we took to dia: beacon in 2019 show up on his phone…does he look at those pictures and smile? or are those just pictures he shrugs at and swipes past? or if nakamara by hiatus kaiyote came on shuffle while he was driving…would he think of me in the way i think of him?
i’d like to think that though we aren’t close anymore…he does still look at our friendship fondly…in the same way i do.
if you enjoyed this piece…here are some others i’d recommend:
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yes, a very real feeling! what i struggle with is when distance starts to come between you and all your friends, and inactive friendships are so normalised, so you have to kinda reevaluate who you’re holding onto in your mind vs. who is actually still present. i had so many friends become distant when i was younger, and i love the friends i have now so fiercely - it’s difficult for me to accept that i might still have friendships which i’ll outgrow, because in my mind at 27 these are the “solid” ones. but of course, people change all the time