All friendships are not meant to be forever. And this is the bitter truth of life.
That's what I tell myself on days when remembering hurts more than forgetting.
Some friendships arrive quietly. They don't announce themselves as important. They don't warn you that one day, they'll become a part of who you are. They just… happen. And before you realize it, they're woven into your everyday life so tightly that imagining a time before them feels impossible.
Ours was a strange kind of friendship. Not loud at the beginning. Not dramatic. Just two people who met without knowing that this meeting would change the shape of their world.
We weren't special at first. We were just there existing in the same space, sharing the same air, exchanging words that didn't seem meaningful back then. If someone had asked me that day what you would become to me, I wouldn't have had an answer. You were just another person. And I was just another face to you.
Funny how that works.....
Somewhere between small conversations and shared glances, something shifted. Slowly. Quietly. Almost unnoticeably. One day, talking to you felt easier than talking to anyone else. One day, your presence started to feel familiar. Comforting. Safe.
And then suddenly, we weren't "just friends."
We were everything people exaggerate friendships to be.
We called each other sisters, because friend didn't feel like enough. We joked about being twins, about understanding each other without speaking, about knowing each other better than anyone else ever could. And in those moments, it didn't feel like a joke at all. It felt true.
You knew my moods before I named them.
I knew your silence before you explained it.
We shared secrets that felt too fragile to say out loud to anyone else. We shared laughter that didn't need a reason. Even sitting quietly together felt full, like words were optional when the connection was strong enough.
There was a time when I couldn't imagine my life without you in it. A time when I thought, this is it. This is the kind of friendship people write about. The kind that lasts. The kind that survives everything.
But nobody talks enough about how friendships don't always end with a big fight.
Sometimes, they end with distance.
Not the dramatic kind. Not the kind where doors are slammed and words are thrown like weapons. Just… space. Days where conversations become shorter. Replies take longer. Laughs don't come as easily. And suddenly, you're polite with someone who once knew everything about you.
That's what happened to us.
There was no single moment I can point to and say, this is where it broke. It was more like watching something slowly fade. Like a photograph left in the sun for too long. The colors don't disappear all at once they just lose their sharpness.
We were still "us," but not really. Still close, but not the same kind of close.
I remember wondering when it started to feel different. When talking to you began to require effort. When I stopped reaching out the way I used to not because I didn't care, but because I was tired of being the only one holding the thread together.
And maybe you felt the same. Maybe distance grew on both sides, quietly, patiently.
People say friendships change because people change. And that's true. We grow. We evolve. We become versions of ourselves that no longer fit the spaces we once shared. But knowing that doesn't make it hurt any less.
Because even now, there are moments when something reminds me of you. A song. A place. A random thought in the middle of the night. And for a second, I forget that we're not who we used to be.
I don't miss the way things ended. I miss the way they were.
I miss the version of us that laughed without thinking, that trusted without fear, that believed some bonds were unbreakable just because they felt strong.
Maybe our friendship wasn't meant to be forever. Maybe it was meant to teach, to shape, to leave a mark and then let go.
But even if we became strangers again, there will always be a part of me that remembers how we weren't strangers once. How we were sisters in everything but blood. How we mattered to each other in ways that didn't need proof.
This is not a story about blame. It's not about who tried harder or who let go first.
It's about a friendship that existed fully, beautifully, and imperfectly. A friendship that lived in the space between hello and goodbye.
And maybe that's enough.