This Is What It Feels Like To Slowly Fall Out Of Friendship With Someone

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As with everything else, friendships have been and will always be subject to change. There are an infinite number of elements within a friendship that can evolve—like the earth’s plates, these elements struggle and run head-on into each other, causing all sorts of friction until the incongruence displays itself outwardly and physically—exactly like how the earth breaks apart at its surface when it finally succumbs to the pressure underneath. While I am rather ill informed on the theory of plate tectonics, I think there is an uncanny similarity between elements of a friendship and the earth’s tectonic plates.

They say that sometimes, you have to let go of things—objects, cities, hometowns, gadgets, and friends—when all they do is blow and push at you from in front, causing you to struggle backward on your life path, just as strong gusts of wind blow and push at you from in front, causing you to fall behind, pushing you further and further away from the path you’re on.

Of course, this does not give you the go-ahead to selfishly drop friendships when they stop giving you the benefits you desire. But let’s explore the other end of the spectrum. What if you believe you’ve done everything within your power to draw that friendship back, but the other party involved stays stagnant and immobile with regards to improving the relationship?

Imagine this friendship on a timeline. Both of you have amassed so many years together that it hurts to think about how things once was. They say it is pointless to dwell in the past. But those memories bring you such warm feelings. They bring back endless conversations about everything and anything. They bring back the time when you completed each other’s sentences—the time when your beings were so in sync that words weren’t necessary to understand each other.

Then reality kicks in. The paths you have chosen now seem to run parallel to each other. Although you pray for them to converge, those differences that only displayed themselves in specs and bits of dust in the past have reared their ugly heads in full-force now. Back then, you knew that the both of you were made differently, but somehow those differences worked to bring you together. You were each other’s better halves. In areas where you were lacking, the other person supplemented, and vice versa.

But there is nothing to hold you together now. You know you’ve always known this would come, but even with that knowledge, it’s hard to accept. Although your fleeting meetings are being filled with voids that even the past fails to fill, you still try. You don’t believe the relationship is toxic. It is merely waning, and changing, as with everything else. You can live with this. Change is something you’ve been getting increasingly used to. Things that used to faze you, you take in with nothing more than a deep breath. But there is still that lingering denial. Is this merely a change, or is it a sign for you to let go?

You wait. As you’ve always done with this friendship. You don’t have answers this time. It’s okay to not always have the answers.