An Open Letter to the Best friend that I let go...
Dear best friend from childhood,
If anything has been constant in my life, it has been change. I have been changing places, meeting new places, getting new experiences and growing up for good or bad with it. I met you at a time when I least expected you. It was one of those life-changing moments.
11 years ago, if I remember it right, I agreed to something that I never should have never agreed to, that change my life and perspectives drastically. I agreed to it, because I was so bored with my life, same people in it and today whenever I regret it, your face beams in my Mind and I know it was meant to happen. We were meant to meet and share those lovely moments.
My friendships have always been fleeting and to some extent they still are, but that was until I met you. You’re the only one that I can proudly call my Best friend that knows me inside-out, that reprimands me for ruining the beautiful life I have and every time, I am about to mess something up, your motherly face comes before me to show me a new path of hope.
I still remember the first day I met you, when the teacher asked you to be my tutor, unaware of the bond that we will come to share in the future. Every time, I speak in Hindi, I laugh to myself thinking of the time when you patiently taught me the language. Every time, I hear someone speak Bengali, I remember how you used to banter with your sisters in Bengali.
If there was somebody I was possessive about, it was you. I hated when other girls and boys talked up to you and you momentarily had to step away from me. I wanted you all to myself and I still do. I am jealous of every other friend that gets to spend time with you, when I am away from you and can’t spend my time. All I got of you is those precious memories that I will trade with none.
I was happy to leave the place behind, because it had too many harsh memories, but never YOU. It took me 11 years to address the trauma that witnessing patriarchy for the first time in life, I went through. It was the first time staying my granny and uncle that I realized that women can be patriarchal too. It came to me as a shock, when I was asked to become submissive without putting up a fight.
Even though, you grew up in a similar environment, yet you were the only one that could understand where I was coming from. You patted my head knowing that I would escape this hell in a matter of two years, even if it’s not the case for you. Hearing about the domestic abuse women undergo in the hands of their husbands scared me enough and made me question on my understanding of life.
The parents that grew me up and the realities that they showed consisting of dreams and hopes of equality, I could always open up and tell my opinion; I was always welcome to take responsibilities. But in the patriarchal setup I was asked to shut up even when I had a valid, logic point to disagree them. I gave up too fast because I was tired of picking up conflicts and thought if I just bite my tongue and get over with it, it will all be over before I even knew it.
Little did I know that life never works that way? That life will not stop, just because I closed my eyes and shut it off. It keeps passing on, rapidly before my eyes. Before I even knew I lost the very essence of what I was, I let them all go away without even putting up a fight and that hurts my Soul even more! Now, that I think about it, losing YOU was the start of it all and if I had stopped you then, fought to be in touch and not just let you go, could our lives have been any different now?
Could I have escaped those six years of dreary darkness that shackled my very sense of being, that the every act of waking up from sleep was the most daunting chore that I’ve ever handled? I keep wondering, why I acted the way I did? Why did I ever cut contacts with you and let you go? Why did I even think that letting you go could stop those nightmares? The questions are endless and I regret it all, now—everything that I did till now!
In fact, letting you go only made my nightmares and commitment issues grow stronger. Today, whenever I make a new friend, I can’t help but compare them to you and wonder what if I let them go? All my actions regarding you makes me wonder if I am ever capable of holding people back in life? Everyone in my life including me loves and loved me dearly, but it had always been who hurt, troubled and let them go. I made them to give up on me. It was always me at fault and I no longer know…
But, dear best friend from childhood, you’ve seen me grow from a naive individual to a sensible, cold, calculating person. If I am whoever I am today, I somewhere am responsible to thank you for the growth that I have attained. I no longer blindly believe people, I have walls build around my wall, but despite it all, you taught me that some scars are worth it. Some relationships are worth the pain. Thanks for always being there for me.
Today, I take this letter to promise you that I will learn to be fun and playful, yet cold and calculating only when situations call for. I will learn to trust and let people past my wall, I will let them stay and not push them way when I most need them. I will not push them and then long that they should have been next to me. I would not test them beyond limits.
I don’t know if I will ever post this letter to you, or if you’ll ever find it floating in the online junk, I don’t know anything about that. But all I know is that I need to tell it all to let my heart see peace and finally get out of the darkness that had clouded me. I don’t know if you’ll still reprimand me for disturbing my beautiful life, still I promise to search for the beauty in it, even when it fails my expectations.
Dear best friend from childhood, life without your physical presence does seems dreary and dull, but I will treasure our precious memories and never repeat my mistake of letting you go again. As my heart bleeds with pain of letting you go away, fleet away from you from what we had, all I can say now is that I am sorry…
All I can hope is, we can repair our broken relationship or maybe it was never broken to begin with. But whatever, it’s just remember I will love you for a lifetime and none fairer, prettier and deeper than you can ever replace you.
With love,
Your best friend from childhood <3