Perils of Friendship

Sometimes you love so hard and so much that you never see beyond the relationship. You think you will be together forever, know each other forever, be best friends forever and do everything together forever. You never imagine that a day might come when your friendship will cease to be friendship, but ships passing in the night until those ships don't even pass at all anymore. You go your separate ways and become strangers. You don't talk anymore, not even online. Years pass by and you even forget about their existence. It's only when your mother or family members remind you of them that you remember them. You recall the days of old when your friendship was as intense as a brush fire, always changing directions and pace, yet always maintaining its intensity. You remember the fights you had, the love you shared, the stubbornness you displayed to one another, how you ignored one another, the many emails and letters you wrote and posted through the letter flap to one another that were filled with the many apologies and declarations of true love and promises to love one another forever. You return to the present and realise that forever is just a concept and not a reality. Forever is a strong wish, a desire of the heart, but it is rejected by reality. Forever is likened to the powerful force of like poles repelling each other. No matter how hard you try, like poles can never attract. Perhaps then your friendship was always like poles and the attraction you shared was never real. Love can be fabricated. Love can be forced. Perhaps then it was love by fabrication, force and pretence. But it felt real! Perhaps the feelings of it being real are also fabricated to the point one believes it to be real.

Years later you remember them as you go through the contacts in your phone and come across their name. You wonder what they are doing and where they are in life. Again you return to the past and remember the good old days. You question whether you should contact them or not. Do they remember or are your memories exclusive to you? Do they ever think about you and do they even care? You take the plunge and press dial whilst standing in the middle of a very busy train station. It's in that moment that you thought to call them, so you do. You don't wait for later in case you lose your nerve to follow through. As you press the dial, you are not even sure if they have kept the same number after so many years, but you hear the dialling tone. Ring, ring, ring, ring and the phone is answered. You hear that unmistakable voice you know so well even if you haven't heard it in so many years. Hello! What do you say? Hi, it's me so and so, how are you? It really seems as though you are speaking to a stranger. You remember when there was no such thing as introducing yourself to them over the phone because they just knew it was you and vice versa. Quickly though, the conversation begins to flow, although there is a slight element of 'what do I say next' in the airwaves. Discoveries are made about what they have been doing since you last spoke or saw each other. You are impressed by them and also happy for them. The realisation that you no longer have those strong feelings of love you once had for them washes over you, but it's calm and not at all destructive. You are at peace with it. You know and accept that your friendship is well and truly gone and never to be revived again. It is well! You continue the conversation to the end, not quite as strangers, but as two people who once shared a deep understanding and strong bond that you no longer have.