There’s a picture of us sitting in this lovely restaurant . You’re laughing, your head thrown back, hair flying wild in the wind. I’m sitting on a chair right opposite to you, my arms slung across the table, smiling at the you and what you say, a bottle of wine with two glasses, not the oversized one like you find at my place, delicately posing between us, slowly overtaking our sanity. In that picture, during those overflowing moments, everything was easy. We didn’t have dreams pulling us in different directions. We didn’t have love telling us to stay, to go. We were rooted to the same town, the same school. We didn’t yet understand the luxury of lazy summer afternoons eating snacks and watching the sunset, our legs kicked up in lawn chairs. We didn’t know how hard it could be to be so far apart.
I haven’t told you this, but every time I think about that evening there is an indescribable ache, perhaps the nice kind… something I look forward to, again.
I miss how it used to be—those sweet secrets in my bedroom, we shared unashamedly, we walked across the road picking up essentials jumping traffic like two teenage girls, walking into boutique shops picking up memorabilia and stuff to carry back, that not so awesome walk on the dirty Mumbai beach, which I know you hated… but you did it for me… my bedroom door which stayed as a guard from perhaps an eavesdropping husband, that was a joke yeah… for he wasn’t allowed anywhere near our vicinity… and all night talking about those boys….you know what I mean? Laugh.. Giggle.. Laugh
Sometimes it feels like you’re half a world away from me.
And honestly, I’d do anything to have you here, right now, laughing at my stupid jokes, sharing some weird details about our secret lives, sipping beers on my front patio, watching the tall buildings across us… feeling the much talked about cool breeze at my floor… and perhaps a sunset, across the sunny sky.
There are miles between us. Airplane rides. Road trips. Hours on a bus. Gas and tickets and wheels on a highway keeping you from easily walking through my front door. There are commitments and schedules. There are work trips and family vacations and day-to-day obligations that remind us our lives are rooted in different places now.
And sometimes it touches my heart, when we call each other a zillion times to share our lows, our own little heartaches and all we do then, is reassure each other through the phone. That when what we really need is a big best friend hug, we’ll have to settle for long text messages and super long voice calls, that almost do the job.
I hate that I can’t see you every day, but no matter the miles and days and hours that separate us, you are never far from me.
You’re on my mind more than you know, and every time I think of you, I’m reminded how lucky I am. And how wonderful it is to have someone who, no matter the distance, no matter the time apart, no matter how far we are physically from one another, will never stop being my best friend.
I love you. And that means more than the miles between us. That means more than the months that have passed between the last time we hugged, or laughed, or cried in one another’s arms. That means more than how far or how long.
Because friendship is not dependent upon distance.
And even if I don’t see you every day, I promise that won’t change a thing.
Stay the same.
sayitnish 