Just different

Today is my childhood best friend’s birthday.

We stopped talking, which wasn’t the plan. One day 6 years ago, after hanging out we just never spoke again. I don’t regret it, but she knows a version of me that no one else will. I did her hair for prom, she drove me to my graduation, we would go to Disneyland for my birthday, we saw Hannah Montana in 2009 wearing fugly outfits (fedoras were worn).

Today is her birthday, and I won’t be texting her, but February 5th will always make me think of her.

We loved the 4th of July and finding obscure places to see the fireworks, hiking places, buy so much food, and get sun sick from being outside all the time. We made friendship bracelets and sold them, and got tiger print on our nails with the money. I drove to her house right after I got my license.

I have all these experiences that she was witness to, she witnessed my childhood and I hers. She knew my grandparents, she knew them well, they loved her. She is probably the only person who got to know how special they were for me.

I think that’s what I miss most about her. This romanticized idea that she could mourn childhood with me. She’s this image of someone who provides comfort, someone who knows what I was like as a kid, sympathizing how devastating the process of growing up and watching who we love get old…. My grandparents sold their house.

I don’t miss her, but what she represents. The same way I miss the way I viewed my parents, but now I am an adult grieving the reality of it all. Old ways of coping don’t work anymore, or I don’t want them to. I grieve Bonka and Poppy not being people I can go to anymore.

I have voice memos of us from middle school making up silly stories, laughing so hard. Memos of her saying remember to text me when you feel sad and that I love you. Similarly I have the voicemails of my grandparents clear and coherent, and completely there- sounding as if I called them back they’d be the same way. How excruciating it is.

The love still exists, all of it, just different. Just different. I am lucky to have had these version of love at all.