Underrated Heartbreak

We’ve heard it all on romantic breakups. We, somehow, have manuals on how to deal and heal from those. We’re equipped with how to get over romantic partners before even getting into relationships. But we seldom speak of how it feels when we lose a friend. Instead, its drilled into us that any hurt that comes from that kind of loss isn’t to even be paid attention to because it’s stupid. I mean why would you even mourn the loss of a friend? They aren’t your family, so they aren’t important.

Writing about this was inspired by one of my favorite IG strangers, Thando Hlophe, for her YouTube channel ‘Azania Realness’, where she spoke of a breakup, she went through with her friend of so many years. And it hit a nerve for me because here was someone who had managed to articulate so well what I have struggled to bring to words for so many years. Here was someone who was speaking of something we rarely engage in conversation on as a society; How heartbreaking friendship breakups are.

When my IG fav gave a little background story that led to her and her friend parting ways, I was hit by my own loss in the face. One I hadn’t dealt with. Rather refused to face because I still harboured anger and hurt over it because for the first time in my life, I felt like I was being disposed by Bheki*, a dear friend of mine, who I would never have let go of. What unfolded on the one particular evening leading to us parting ways led to a physical altercation, and 80% of what happened was on me; A very hard truth I had to tell myself and accept. A lot was done that evening, no one was sober enough to stop any wreckage. So, what started out as a great get-together ended with me waking up with a bruised face, fuzzy memory but a clear remembrance of a shattered friendship.

My feelings of hurt and anger emerged days later when I reached out with an apology and I was met with silence for a while before I was thrown a cold ‘I forgive you,’ text. Nothing else. No apology for me. And I realized there was no intention to really speak and fix things on his side. It seemed so easy for him to just up and leave the friendship we had created and the memories we had. Basically, letting me know that I held no weight in his life. And after that day we never spoke him and I. I didn’t even bump into him anywhere. We lived in the same neighbourhood but I never saw him anywhere. How convenient, huh? LOL. Not until about 4 years later. And even then, not much was said about that fateful day, we just exchanged friendly small talk and exchanged numbers again but I never reached out. I felt like there’s nothing to pick up or build there. We were different people now and so much happened between then and now.

Here’s what I took with me though after that friendship breakup:

1. It hurt. The breakup hurt. More than I wanted to admit or more than I wanted it to. At some point I told myself to get it together and move on because I still have other friends. But the truth was, I could never have another Bheki* in my life again. I could never go back 8 years from now and start over with someone new. Neither could I go back to the day that broke us and do things differently, so even convince him that our friendship weighed more than the altercation we had. That’s not how life works. I could never share life with him again and it sucked. I could never have that again; Our friendship had ceased to exist. All we have now are old pictures to prove that we once existed in the same spaces doing life and creating memories together.
2. I felt exposed. Not in the sense that I had secrets I was afraid he was going to let the world on, I didn’t care for that because I still trust him. But rather I felt like the mistake I made that led to the breakup was an exposure to myself. I became the friend I swore I would never be. I did something I didn’t know I could ever do. The incident, on its own, will forever remind me to keep my feet on the ground because I could simply become what I always swore I would never be. I had to learn to be vulnerable enough to see this and admit it to myself for my own betterment.
3. Just like in romantic relationships, sometimes things happen in friendships that we could never really come back from. Especially if the desire to fix things is only one sided. I wanted to fix us after our altercation because I felt like our love for each other and the bond we shared outweighed everything and anything else, and yet he didn’t feel like that. He wanted us to start over years later but I was no longer there anymore because I realized that I didn’t want to be friends with someone who could just dispose me so easily.
4. I was reminded that this is what growing up meant. It meant losing people because of stupid mistakes and have to own up to those mistakes and be adults when dealing with the consequences of our mistakes. Even when those mistakes have costed us great humans and we can’t really go back in time to fix anything. Being an adult meant learning from that and resolving to being a better person for those you still get to keep and love.

Our friends are our chosen families and we’re allowed to hurt over losing them. Don’t deprive yourself of that. It’s ok for them to mean as much to us as our families and partners do as well.