By Dipti B.
PROMPT—During Covid-19 ...
I woke up one morning and like always, I went through my social media handles. Nothing important could be found even after going through the entire news feed. I was about to log out when I realized one message was left unseen. At first, I didn't even bother to look at it thinking it's probably from someone I don't want to talk to at the moment. But eventually, I opened the inbox and to my surprise or more like shock, it was from my old-time school friend. She used to be my best friend for some years at school but we kind of parted away from being "best friends" when our classes got divided. She found new friends and so did I. But that doesn't mean we stopped talking. We were still friends and pretty good actually. She was in the list of good friends and had secured a nice spot there.
Back to the text. So yes, I got a text from her but I wasn't so excited. I don’t know what happened. I should have been excited. Especially during this time. Especially, when we clearly know that one call and that one text might be someone's last. I texted her back and like after a couple of seconds, she replied back to me. And the conversation started. But we hardly talked for half an hour.
All we did was talk about some random stuff. And that made me realize how hard it is for me to open up these days. I talked to my once-upon-a-time best friend after probably eight years or so and we couldn't even share things that were happening in our life. None of us actually have any idea what we're going through. We asked and we claimed we were fine, however, I am pretty sure we both knew we were not really fine. Seriously, no one is really fine. We asked out of courtesy and we replied….well, out of courtesy. We had time to talk about our life. We could have shared problems, asked advice, gossiped, talked about our future plans, everything, but we both chose to remain quiet about important subjects that actually are the essence to bonding.
I still can't believe I talked to my friend after so many years but also, I still can't process the idea of not being able to be me in front of her. We were literally just acting like we cared and playing the who would say goodbye first game.
This incident taught me one thing. Although it feels grateful to pass in someone's thoughts once in a while and connect after a long time, it doesn't necessarily satisfy your soul. People are temporary. Everyone has a time limit in our life. That also means we have the privilege to meet someone new and bond. We can't be with one person forever and we don't need to either. We can have different kinds of connections and bonding with different people. Like this friend of mine who was somebody I used to care and talk to is no more the kind of friend I want now. No hard feelings though. I wouldn't mind if I got a chance to meet her someday or keep contact on social media. However, I highly doubt if we can ever have the same connection and/or friendship again. I have always believed friendship is like a romantic relationship minus the romance. If we are once done with our partner, nothing can bring us back to where we left. I guess that’s okay and maybe that's how we humans survive—by moving on.
Dipti B. graduated with her bachelor's degree in Agriculture from her home country Nepal. After brushing off the idea about writing for years, here she is, working on short stories, flash fictions plus keeping up with a diary in between. Fun fact about her: She loves to paint.
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