I Miss the Friend I Don’t Speak To Anymore

Dear Delyara, I thought about an old friend today for no clear reason. One of those people who used to know the shape of my days. The kind of friendship where there didn’t need to be a special reason to call. The kind of closeness that felt built into ordinary life. We don’t speak anymore. Nothing dramatic happened, which almost makes it worse. No betrayal. No one cleanly in the wrong. Just distance, changes, missed timings, different directions, and the quiet kind of ending that leaves no dramatic story to tell when people ask what happened. I think friendship grief is underestimated because it doesn’t always have language around it. When romantic relationships end, people know how to respond. But losing a friend can leave a different kind of wound — one that is less visible and therefore easier to dismiss, even when it lingers for years. I don’t know if I miss her exactly, or who I was when she knew me, or the version of life in which that friendship still existed naturally. Maybe all three. There are some people whose absence doesn’t ache every day, but when it does, it surprises you with how alive it still is. Tonight is one of those nights.