Meera left on Thursday. Packed up her Williamsburg apartment, gave me her plants, and flew back to LA. And now the city has a Meera-shaped hole in it.
We met three years ago at a sample sale in Bushwick, both reaching for the same ridiculous sequined jacket, and that was it. She became my person. The friend who moved away was, for three years, the friend who moved toward me.
We used to take the L together. She'd get on at Bedford, I'd already be on from further out, and we'd ride into the city talking too loud, planning lives we half-meant. The L train was ours.
Nobody warns you about adult friendship. About how it can just get on a plane. When you're young, friends are geography, they're the kids on your street, and it feels permanent. Then you grow up and everyone is choosing cities, and the friend who moved away isn't betraying you, she's just living. But it still guts you.
I helped her pack. We wrapped her plates in her old tank tops. She kept saying we'll visit, we'll call, and I kept saying of course, and we both know the terrible math of long distance. It thins. Not from lack of love. From lack of the L train.
At the airport she cried and I didn't, and then in the car back I cried the whole BQE.
There's a Hindi word, joota-chappal, no wait, that's shoes, I mean the feeling when someone leaves and takes a version of you with them. There isn't one word. There should be.
The friend who moved away took the version of me that was loud and hopeful on the L train at 9pm. I want her back. That version and that friend both.
I rode the L alone yesterday. Sat where we used to sit. The empty seat beside me did all the talking.
Love the people who stay near. And love the ones who fly.
Love,