Me, My Life & Why Part 22

Part 22

It wasn’t dramatic.

No capital letters.

No passive-aggressive punctuation.

No grand thesis on hurt feelings or miscommunication.

Just a short, honest email to the ex-friend I hadn’t spoken to in… a year? Maybe more.

We used to talk every day.

Now I couldn’t remember the last thing we laughed about.

I’d been holding onto the ghost of that friendship for months. It lived in old screenshots, half-written messages I never sent, Instagram memories I couldn’t bring myself to delete. A little ache every time her name came up in a story I wasn’t part of.

I kept telling myself I didn’t need closure.

That it would be petty or embarrassing or too late.

But something about where I was now, this new unpolished peace I’d carved out, made me want to sweep up the last few shards. Even if it meant cutting my fingers in the process.

So I wrote it.

“Hey, I’ve been thinking about you.

I know we drifted, and maybe we needed to.

I still care about the version of us that existed, and I hope you’re doing well.

That’s all. No reply needed.”

I sat with it.

Edited it.

Deleted the bit where I said I missed her laugh.

Re-added it.

Took it out again.

Considered adding a P.S. about that awful “gentle wellness podcast” she’d sent me as a passive-aggressive personality critique. Decided against it. Barely.

And then I hit send.

The email flew off into the void with no fanfare. No animation. No doves.

Just me, blinking at the screen like I’d accidentally knocked over a vase.

And then… nothing.

No rush of healing. No wave of peace. No musical cue.

Just an empty inbox and a strangely quiet brain.

I made tea.

Cleaned out the mug I’d left on the windowsill for far too long.

Played music I hadn’t heard since our last road trip, a playlist we made together full of dramatic indie lyrics and badly mixed 2000s R&B.

I didn’t cry.

I thought I might.

But the grief had softened.

Because the truth is: I already knew it was over. I’d known for a while.

We’d outgrown each other in that slow, silent way no one talks about, where the gap isn’t caused by a fight, but by evolving in different directions.

She became spreadsheets and school runs. I became naps and existential tangents.

Neither of us was wrong.

But we no longer fit.

And maybe that’s okay.

Not every friendship gets a dramatic finale or a tidy goodbye. Some just trail off. Some just leave behind a version of you that no longer exists, and the memory of who you were when you loved them.

Still, I’m glad I sent it.

Not because I needed her response, she hasn’t replied, and maybe she never will.

But because I needed mine.

I needed to say, “You mattered. You still do. I’m just not holding the door open anymore.”

Later that night, I told Alex.

He nodded and said, “That’s big.”

Then we ate crisps in bed and watched a documentary about fungi because we are, apparently, those people now.

I scrolled through our old messages one last time. Screenshotted nothing.

Closed the app.

Turns out closure isn’t fireworks or final scenes.

It’s a quiet email.

A choice to stop rereading the same story.

A deep breath and the knowledge that some doors close without slamming.

And maybe that’s enough.