The Regeneration of Us

Dear Friend,

About a year ago, when I told you about all the friends I'd moved away from, you made a face, and said, "I'm not very good at keeping in touch." In that moment, the possibility of my departure was so abstract that it did not exist. In fact, although I knew, better than you, that I'd be moving eventually, I could never have predicted the events that followed.

That was the year our friendship fell apart, and me with it.

I never wanted to speak to you again. At least, not until you'd apologized or talked about what happened. You were the best friend I'd ever had, until you became the worst. I was determined to stay away, but my cracks only widened. I only felt like myself when I was with you.

Things never really went back to the way they were. (How could they?)

And then it happened- the big move. I crossed a continent and the Pacific Ocean and I never expected to hear from you again. (Even though you hiked to my uncle's house with our friends the day before I left, to say goodbye one last time.) Our friendship had become a tenuous, uncertain thing; sometimes a façade I had to maintain in certain company, and sometimes the rock I held onto, to avoid being swept away. It was sharp rock, and slippery, and it was always there when I required it, but I never relied on it again.

Three months passed. I navigated foreign shores. Friends texted and called and video-called me, but you were never one of them. Then you wished me on my birthday. I thanked you. "Well, that's that," I thought, but it wasn't. You sent me seven long messages, immediately after each other, telling me about everything that was happening in my absence, asking me about my life and filling me in on the lives of nearly everyone we knew.

I replied to you that day. And the day after that, and the day after that. And I'll keep replying, and maybe one day all the good you've done for me will far outweigh the bad you've done to me, and I can love you wholeheartedly once more.

Maybe, on that day, we'll go to that art gallery, the one that's always closed every time we try to visit it. I'll look up the timings the day before. You'll show up fifteen minutes late, instead of an hour. After the gallery, we'll go to one of those cutesy cafes you like so much and eat something exotic and Western. We'll laugh, and tell each other stories, and it'll strike me again how different we are. But meat and salt aren't very similar, either, and they still go well together.

That day will be the regeneration of us- you and me, together, like before, but with clearer communication, and more respect for each other and ourselves. That day will come soon; I look forward to it.

Always,

Your friend