We used to talk every day. Now I found out she moved apartments from someone else.
We had dinner on the Lower East Side this week, at that dumpling place on Eldridge we used to go to when we first met, back when we were both new to the city and clinging to each other like life rafts. It felt like a reunion. It also felt, quietly, like a goodbye.
Nobody warns you about this part. Drifting apart from a friend in your twenties doesn't come with a fight or a betrayal. There's no scene. Just fewer texts. Longer gaps. A group chat that used to buzz all day now going silent for weeks at a stretch.
We ordered the same dumplings we always did. She told me about her new job. I told her about the coat. And there was warmth, real warmth, but also this ache of talking to someone I used to know completely and now know in headlines only.
When did that happen? Somewhere between her Bushwick era and my move uptown. Somewhere in the thousand tiny choices about who to spend a Friday with.
I walked home over the bridge afterward, thinking about how friendship in your twenties is this brutal, beautiful sorting. Some people you keep for life. Some were exactly right for one specific season and trying to drag them into the next one only breaks what was good.
My mother says friendships are like the seasons back home. The monsoon comes hard and full and then it goes, and you don't resent the sky for it. You just remember how it felt to be soaked.
Drifting apart doesn't erase what you had. Those first-year-in-NYC nights were real. She held me together when I didn't know a single soul. That's forever, even if the daily texts aren't.
I hugged her outside the restaurant a little longer than usual. I think we both knew.
Not every ending needs a fight. Some just need a soft goodbye and a wave from the shore.
Love,