Letters to the Lost Ones: An Unfortunate Series

These are words that have been held captive way too long because it was afraid of letting it see the light. 

Over the years I have lost several friendships that I used to value and they all end so suddenly that I never got the chance to say a proper goodbye. So this is a letter to the lost ones. 

Dear Lost One, 

Hello. It’s me. I know my voice seems foreign to you now but it used to vibrate through your ears on a daily basis. It’s funny how we adjust. It’s funny how the  people that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with just drift away.

We lost each other. We headed down such distant paths and they never diverged again. I sometimes still think about you. I see you occasionally when scrolling down my social media and sometimes think what things would be like if we were still friends. Would we be watching the world end together? Would we both have had families? Would you have grown to resent your mother? Would you have had a failed engagement? Would you be happy? So many thoughts that echo through my head on restless nights, most about you.

I never thought I would be calling you a lost one. I miss our park car conversations at 3am where I would bring you and your family groceries because you didn’t have money because your parents spent it all on drugs and alcohol. We would look up at the stars and just dream. Dream about life after high school. We would apply to colleges at 3 am because we were too excited. We were too eager to experience the world outside of the small town that we had been trapped in our whole lives.

I should have known something was wrong when you stopped dreaming. I’m sorry that I was preoccupied with myself and I didn’t take the time to check in on you.I neglected you. I could have fought harder for our friendship. If I had known the summer of 12th grade would have been our last summer together I would have shown you more of the world. If I had known that the promises to keep in touch when I went off to college were just empty promises I could have prepared myself better for the heartbreak. We promised each other to always share the big moments in our life’s and instead we kept the biggest moments of our lives away from each other. You hid the best part of you away from me. Although we have talked about it and forgiven each other it still hurts when I think about it. I know it hurts you more than it hurts me. I have a support system, something that you have always lacked. I tried to be that for you. I’m sorry, not only that you lost me but that you lost yourself along the way. I’m sorry that I didn’t acknowledge your crises for help.

Part of me still thinks that there is hope for our friendship and that things won’t always be this way. But I know that we will only grow further apart and that our friendship will never be the same. We still interact from time to time but you are a lost one. I don’t regret anything about our friendship. Although you are a lost one, I am forever grateful for you. 

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