SILENCE

I’m counting the passing of every minute, every day, and every week since our last meeting. 

We last met on your wedding, on 3rd of October. I remember telling you someday before that, jokingly of how I believe that your wedding would likely be our last time together. It’s funny how what I said could still come true in the future, despite my lack of faith in myself. But that is apparently the way with things; your least favourite, unwanted things could be the outcome of your fate.

I have always thought happiness is the prerequisite or the prelude of an impending disaster; waiting for the second shoe to drop. For some time in my life, you are the best that has happened to me. It’s unfair that people have a totally different notion on what I thought about you, when I genuinely think you are the person who opens up a different whole wider range of my personality – my best friend.

You taught me that my insecurities meant nothing when I have faith in myself. You taught me that being insecure is what makes me human, and that fear of failure and fear of something unknown are not as scary if I have the right attitude and mindset to face them.

Being happy for that moment, intuitively, was the telltale sign that something bad and inevitable was coming our way - Separation. 

I have always believe you are a part of my destination; the companion that I could rely on my whole life, the one that I found along my journey and would accompany me to the end. Your opinions always matter to me. 

I remember those 3 days when we didn’t talk to each other for the first time, and at the end of the period, you taught me a lesson I never forget – that whom I was angry at all along was not you, but it was myself. I was angry for feeling so inadequate and weak. I was angry that I was unable to accept myself for who I am.

It’s always like that – you were my guru in life, teaching me so much more that I ought to learn about myself, you were the companion I needed – to tell me right from wrong, to listen to what I have to say and to protect me from danger I brought upon myself. I wonder about every possibility of the destination we’re heading to, when every direction was a new place yet to be discovered with you.

But when I was envisioning a future with you, you thought of me as a part of your journey, a mere face that would someday fade away. You would remind me that every single person we know is another person we would leave – that every time there’s a hello, there’s a goodbye.

Your wedding was the point of no return, sadly. Bit by bit before that, we drifted apart. Trying to communicate with you proves to be a chore; and distance makes us grow apart. Every time I wanted to stay in touch, I feel like I’m being selfish, like I was going to hold you back from enjoying life. That our time is over and now you have to explore your life on your own, on your pace without me.  

It is exactly 3 months and 12 days since we last saw each other; more than a quarter of a year, and the last time I called you was on your convocation. I had a plethora of things to say, that I missed you and our little chats, and the phase of us growing up, and I wanted to listen to your stories of how much you have changed and how much you have grown from then. But surprisingly, the conversation on the phone was us again, talking so talkatively like we had never even separated, just the way we always were that I began to believe myself that the separation did never occurred and I have just met you a few hours earlier. 

Writing this piece again, addressing ‘you’ as ‘you’ is godawful to think that ‘you’ will never read this or anything else that I wrote for ‘you’. That you never really understood or would understand that certain things I could not express verbally and this is my solace; writing down all that I feel no matter how goddamn awkward it can be. Being honest is my strength when all else is lost. 

It is ironic that I would be all alone again after I found you. Whatever remains from our encounter and companionship is now a torturing silence. I know to be thinking about how lonely I have felt for all this while doesn’t seem like a good cause for writing, but it seems like writing is the only outlet for this whirlpool of emotions. That I feel like you have been ignoring me and I could not make you see that your silence is the loudest scream of disapproval, of abandonment. 

I treasured dearly many things about you, but this silence is just unnerving. You didn’t answer my messages, didn’t engage in any conversation in our group chats, and you never make plans anymore. What is even scarier is the thought that we no longer have anything in common until we have nothing to talk about anymore, and that perhaps is the truth.

I guess you were telling the truth after all, that I was just another face in your journey. And I think that’s alright – despite the disappointment and the disheartenment that I've been enduring. I guess losing you makes me a better friend, that I would treasure friendship more than before now that I’ve seen how our friendship changes me – in all the good ways. And befriending you and losing you in the end inspires me in many different ways. The silence might seem the loudest now, but perhaps this is the tranquility that I have been needing to push me forward to my unknown destiny.