There’s this peculiar sadness that comes with realizing you don’t really talk to someone who once knew everything about you.
You don’t fight. You don’t have a falling out. There’s no dramatic betrayal. No cryptic text that says “we need to talk.” It’s not like a breakup, even though it sort of is. It’s more like you both slowly wandered out of the same party and didn’t bother texting each other to say, “Hey, where’d you go?” Because deep down, you both know.
It’s just that your lives don’t rhyme anymore.
In high school, I had a friend named Darren. He knew what band t-shirt I was going to wear before I picked it out. We could have an entire conversation using just The Simpsons quotes and inside jokes about our math teacher’s weirdly aggressive chalkboard erasing. He was the guy I called when I got dumped and the only person who would go with me to see Adaptation in a mostly empty theater on a Wednesday night. We spent entire summers doing nothing, together. We once ranked every Metallica album on a scale of “Would James Hetfield growl this in a cave?” to “Would Lars Ulrich ruin this with a hi-hat?”
But now I couldn’t even tell you what city he lives in.
This isn’t unique to me, obviously. It’s part of growing up. You follow different trajectories, get absorbed by different gravitational pulls. Maybe one of you becomes a dad and starts using words like “mow pattern.” Maybe one of you starts meditating and saying things like “I just want to hold space for you.” Maybe one of you moves to Portland and becomes very, very into ethically-sourced wool.
What nobody tells you—what no sitcom or coming-of-age movie really prepares you for—is that sometimes, you’ll miss someone who’s still alive.
You’ll think of them when a song comes on. Or when a smell hits you a certain way—like the warm plastic of a high school gym or the crusty inside of a Taco Bell wrapper. Or you’ll see someone who looks like them from a certain angle, and for half a second your brain tricks you into believing it’s them. But it’s not. It’s just some other guy at a gas station.
It’s easy to feel guilty about this. Like you should have tried harder. Like maybe one more phone call would have changed the trajectory of the friendship. But I don’t think that’s true. I think some relationships are built for a specific version of you. And when that version dissolves—when you evolve, when they evolve—the scaffolding just doesn’t hold up anymore.
And that’s not failure. That’s life.
Sometimes, the kindest thing two people can do for each other is quietly let go.
That doesn’t mean it didn’t matter. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. It just means it was. Past tense. A beautiful past tense. Like a song you used to play on repeat that now only comes up once in a blue moon—but when it does, you stop what you’re doing and listen all the way through, and you smile. Not because you wish things were still like that, but because you’re glad they once were.
So here’s to the friends we outgrow. The ones we don’t talk to anymore. The ones who helped us become who we are—even if they’re no longer around to see who that is.
I hope they’re doing okay.
And I hope they still quote The Simpsons sometimes, too.