Recently, we were at a wedding and I ran into an old friend. In another life, we were once really close. We confided with each other – our thoughts, our fears, our health issues, our romantic interests. We understood each other in a deep, intimate, but platonic love. But five years after I last saw her, it felt like we were miles apart. Granted, I moved out to Ottawa in 2022, but our text messages and other communications had become more sporadic long before then. Now here we were: despite all the shared history, we were two friends who drifted apart, barely better than acquaintances — almost strangers.
If we understand friendship as a series of reflections over time, where two (or more) people see all these different versions of yourselves over time, then I am so blessed to have several best friends in my life that have been my mirrors, reflecting all those different versions of me — and I, them. They have stood by me through all the heartbreak and tragedy and wreckage, but also all of the joy and accomplishments. And I have done my best to stand by them through all that life throws at us.
Imagine then running into this old friend at a wedding who has missed all the crucial moments in your life the past half decade. We exchanged pleasantries and caught up at a surface level. There was a brief moment of connection, where we let our guard down and showed that we still genuinely cared for each other. But that moment was fleeting. Altogether, I left that conversation feeling awkward and uneasy. It was not a moment of reconnection, because I think that would mean some sort of spark to continue engaging with each other. No — we were just two acquaintances, ships passing each other in the night. Just barely more than strangers.
Seeing each other again at that wedding, there was an inescapable, insurmountable void where we weren’t in each other’s lives for the last few pivotal and transformative years. A history severed. I am not the same person I once was all those years ago. This friend was not there to see these different reflections of me. They were not there when I’ve had to crawl through the wreckage. They were not there when my life was collapsing. Perhaps that void seems almost impossible to reconcile. If platonic love is vital, essential, and what could keep us going in these difficult times, then the loss of that love (or the realization of that loss) is just as devastating.
Friendship is a privilege granted to those who earn that intimacy through the act of being present and showing up through all the highs and all the lows. True friends share in life experiences with you, through all the good and the bad, the sorrow and the joy, the laughter and the tears. Friendship is never promised to us. It is a lifelong commitment to care for each other and actually give a fuck.
The other weekend, I spent my Sunday watching the Before Trilogy (Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight) back-to-back-to-back at the Bytowne. Celine was right in Sunset: “I guess when you are young, you believe that you will meet many people with whom you’ll connect with, but later in life you realize it only happens a few times.” But in this context, I also think about a re-interpretation of a passage in Before Midnight:
“Like a sunrise or sunset, anything so ephemeral. Just like our life – we appear and we disappear and we are so important to some, but, we are just passing through.”
I think it is ok to change over time. We are allowed to change and not be the same person we were years ago. We have lived several lifetimes and will live several more. And it is ok if friends drift in and out of your life, appearing and disappearing, passing through. But there is also a sadness in the void that is left when someone close is no longer in your life.
Reconnecting is an oft-repeated trope in movies and TV — sometimes with striking parallels to my own scenario. Of course, there’s Celine and Jesse reuniting in Paris in Before Sunset. In Normal People, Marianne and Connell reunite at a party at Trinity College and confess how much they missed each other in their lives. In the film One Day (the original Anne Hathaway version, not the Netflix version), Emma and Dex reunite at a wedding, confessing they screwed up their friendship and committing to “no more disappearing”. But reality doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes there is no proclamation of “I miss you” or “I want you back in my life.” Sometimes, there’s just an awkward tension, an unspoken recognition that “We are different people and we live different lives now.” Sometimes, no one just wants to say what’s on their mind.
Perhaps Stars’ “Your Ex-Lover is Dead” is not just about lovers, but actually about an estranged friendship. Where two people with shared history run into each other by happenstance, but really, they’re not much better than strangers.
“God, that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said, “Yes, I think we’ve met before,”
In that instant it started to pour”“I’m not sorry I met you, I’m not sorry it’s over
I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save.”
I will always appreciate the time we shared with each other. The shared history and the shared memories. All the love and care we once had for each other. I don’t regret any of that. But we are different people now than we were five years ago or ten years ago. We could commit to rebuilding that library of reflections and to catch up on each other’s lives. We could commit not to disappear but to want to see each other grow, celebrate our achievements together, and stay when life gets difficult. But it’s also ok not to want that and we don’t need to force that. It’s also ok that maybe that was just an awkward moment and neither of us wanted to actually confess that we want each other in our lives. But for now, that unspoken tension remains unresolved, like an unfinished chord leaving you without a satisfying conclusion. So perhaps this is just how it goes: two strangers who were once friends just passing through.