Between Us (40/90)

“It will just be until it won’t anymore."

Those were the words I uttered about this friendship while I was sitting at the bar among friends several months ago.

A bit of foreshadowing, it turns out.

Things are falling apart, not quickly though. Which is hard. It’s a slow crumbling. The kind that when you see it happening, you know there is no salvaging of the pieces, all of the little pieces.

***

The silence was almost unbearable today.

There was an empty space between us, one that no one else could have observed as we sat, chatting, and laughing over breakfast. But it was obvious to me, because it hasn’t always been there. And it felt, well, the way that emptiness does.

I know that we’re getting down to the end now.

There isn’t a timeline. But, I just know. Because I feel it.  And there is no convincing me otherwise. More truthfully, I know because I’ve been on the other side of it. I know exactly how this works. I know what’s coming next.

 And of the two options that I see, one being letting it fall apart, and the other being fighting to keep it together, neither one feels right.

***

Our worlds no longer collide. There is no commonality.

I walked away from the thing that made us the same kind of people. I broke the unspoken contract that friends enter into: I’ll be here, and we’ll be friends as long as you stay the same.

The hardest thing is that no love has been lost. None at all. But authenticity has. I’m holding back, watching my words. I’m scared to speak the truth that I know will in this person’s eyes, disqualify me from friendship.

***

One of my pet peeves, probably the biggest of them, is superficiality.

This is especially true in relationships. I can deal with most things, and I’m loyal to the core, but the one prerequisite I have is that we are allowed to move beyond the surface, to dig into everything. Fairly quickly, even.

I can’t help that need. That’s always been in me. The rudimentary things in life just don’t satisfy me. And it sounds pretentious, I’m sure. But I see it differently.

 I don’t need things to be profound, mind-blowing, or sensational, just real.

***

But here I am holding back.

I’ve been trying to convince myself that everything will be okay. That sometimes things fall apart and then come back together. But this is not what I believe. I know that it will not be okay.

I just haven’t the courage yet to accept what I said on that night at the bar after one too many drinks: It will just be until it won’t anymore.

And that’s what’s real.