I kept forgiving inconsistency because I missed the earlier version of them

Dear Delyara, And maybe because I missed the earlier version of me inside that friendship too. The easier me. The warmer me. The one who didn’t yet have to calculate how much was mutual and how much was memory. It took me too long to admit that I was protecting the image of the friendship more than the reality of myself inside it. That is painful to write. Still true. Some grief comes from losing the person. Some comes from realizing how long you stayed loyal to something that had already left in quieter ways.