Meghna moved back to India on Thursday. Bangalore. For good, or at least for the foreseeable good.
We met three years ago at a rooftop party in the LES that neither of us wanted to be at. Found each other by the drinks table, both of us doing that thing where you fake-text to look busy. She saw my screen was open to a Bollywood song lyric and just said, "okay, we're friends now." And we were.
My best NYC friend moving back to India is a specific grief I wasn't ready for. Not a breakup. Not a death. Just a door quietly closing on the version of my week that had her in it.
We took the AirTrain out to JFK together on Thursday morning, her two enormous suitcases wedged between us, both of them exactly one kilo under the limit because she'd repacked in the taxi line like a woman defusing a bomb.
At security she hugged me and said, "come home, na. Come visit." And I said of course, obviously, soon. And we both knew "soon" is the softest lie two immigrants tell each other.
Here's the maths that keeps me up: I moved thousands of miles to build a life, and the terrible catch of building a life far from home is that the people you build it with can leave too. Everyone here is a little bit passing through. My best NYC friend moving back to India just made that visible.
Her apartment in Sunnyside is half-empty now. She gave me her plants, her rice cooker, and a scarf that still smells like her.
I cried on the E train home. Quietly, the New York way, face pointed at the ad for teeth-straightening.
But here's the other thing. She's not gone-gone. There's WhatsApp, there's a 9.5 hour difference we've done before, there's the whole undignified beauty of loving people across time zones.
And honestly, now I have a reason to book a ticket home that isn't just guilt.
Some friendships don't end. They just change area codes.
Love,