dear friend,

i’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to you…

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dear friend,

i saw this thing that reminded me of you…

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dear friend,

i miss you…

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Growing up, the worst punishment my parents could give me was making me stay indoors. For some, a day spent entirely in bed sounds blissful and rejuvenating — the closest thing to heaven on earth. For me, it meant being sentenced to a day of absolute boredom. I didn’t have a smartphone until the end of middle school, and our family got a TV only shortly before that. Days confined to the house were always long, silent ones where I had to spend my time cleaning or making up games to entertain myself. On the other hand, I loved the days filled with summer camp adventures, Boy Scouts trips, sports or another of the millions of activities my parents kept me in to satisfy my constant need to do something. 

Perhaps this was by design: My mother intentionally didn’t get a TV until my siblings and I were a bit older because she saw it as a potential avenue for us to be lazy all day. I didn’t get a smartphone until I was older because it was a potential distraction as opposed to a necessity. Time has proven that she was right; we spend more time on both devices than I ever could have imagined back then. But some remnants of that time still stick with me. 

As my mom puts it, from the second I could walk, I was a ball of energy. Once I walked, I wanted to run. Once I ran, I wanted to jump. When our family would go to church every Sunday, I would run laps around the pews, sometimes pairing that cardio with delighted screams to the chagrin of my parents. This proclivity to do things bled into much of my friendships later in life. All of my best friends were the kind to go on spontaneous weekend adventures, explore every nook and cranny of the city or keep themselves busy by getting involved at school. Here, the residuals of my time without technology lingered. Even though we made countless memories when doing things, I struggled to maintain those friendships without personal contact. I hardly texted any of my friends and rarely FaceTimed them. If we didn’t see each other, we wouldn’t talk.

For much of my life, I never thought that this preference for in-person friendship was something I’d ever have to reevaluate. It’s easy to maintain this style of friendship when life is static: When you go to the same high school every day, when everyone lives in the same city for the foreseeable future, when the promise of “see you soon!” rings true. Before college, I understood at some level that I might drift apart from my high school best friends. I was set for Berkeley, and my friends were headed to Tucson, Amsterdam and Omaha — each one of us hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away from each other. To compound that, none of us was big on communication outside of our shared activities or spontaneous adventures, and there was no guarantee we’d even be in the same city anytime soon. I assumed, however, that I’d find my new best friends and ride out the college adventure with them. I never accounted for just how different college would be from high school. 

 In college, life isn’t static: It moves on. I don’t think I truly internalized that until this year. Life changes come at you at a faster pace than I think anyone truly anticipates. It’s likely you don’t see your friends every day, people come and go much more quickly and everyone now understands that their best friends could end up living on the opposite side of the world in the blink of an eye. Last semester, I did find my group after in-person instruction brought me to finally live in Berkeley for the first time. I lucked out with housemates who were always down to explore somewhere we’d never been, leading to a misguided and exhausting hike to Lake Anza; to try something we’d never done, causing us to sneak into many a frat party; and to consider perspectives we’d never encountered, highlighting how our upbringings in Mexico, Italy and the United States shaped our beliefs on capitalism, corruption and international politics. But college isn’t high school, and the repetition and certainty that seemed like a given in high school disappeared in college. One of my housemates ultimately dropped out, and two others were only here for one semester on exchange. When I arrived back from winter break, I felt like I was on a TV show where half of the cast inexplicably disappeared and got replaced. Sure, I’m warming up to my new housemates and can see myself becoming very good friends with them, too; but, the cycle is destined to repeat.

But college isn’t high school, and the repetition and certainty that seemed like a given in high school disappeared in college.

This semester, I have three new roommates, all of whom will only stay the duration of the semester as they are on exchange from other countries. At the end of this semester, my lease is up, and I’m sure it’ll change the frequency with which I see my closest friends, all of whom live within a five-minute walking distance. At the end of next semester, I’ll have finished college and have to decide where to start my career. Soon after, so will all of my friends. Inevitably, we will all find our own little corner of the globe to make our own. It’s possible — likely, even — that I will never see these people again after that. I’m sure we’ll try to keep in touch, but I’m sure it’ll be hard for things to stay the same. Eventually, all of our memories together will become old times; maintaining friendship can be hard without the possibility and promise of creating new times. But that doesn’t mean that now doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t mean that now won’t matter in the future. Friendships and relationships change, and that is OK. Not everything is meant to last, and that is OK. Even if they were brief, the memories my friends and I made were ones we made together, and that is enough. For something as valuable as that, I can make the effort to type that text or make that call that has so often eluded me in the past. 

Friendships and relationships change, and that is OK. Not everything is meant to last, and that is OK.

It’s been several months since I last talked to my best friends from high school, and it has been years since I had real conversations with them. The same is already starting to happen with many of my college friends. For now, a text may suffice, but something more personal seems apt as our time together grows distant. Perhaps an old style of communication is best for an old friend. The ancient Greeks had six different words for love. They didn’t love ice cream the same way they loved their mothers. Instead, they distinguished between the different types of love. The word for the love between close friends was philia. So, this Valentine’s Day — a day to ostensibly celebrate love — I decided to start with a philia letter to the friends I’ve grown apart from.

Dear Friend,

I know it’s been a while since we last talked. You may not be the same person I knew, and I may no longer be the person you knew. Still, my time with you helped shape me, and I’m grateful for the moments we had. You’re with me whenever I think of “Forrest Gump,” an ode to that time you were drunk and insisted on watching it. Your accent suddenly became southern, remarking on life being like a box of chocolates, while we all died laughing at you. You’re with me whenever I hear the rattle of spray paint cans, when we found that hidden place and wrote messages nobody will ever read. You’re with me when that old Italian rock song — “Meraviglioso” — comes up on my playlist, the first time we really admitted how much we were missing home. Thank you for the laughs, thank you for the hugs, thank you for the time. I hope you’re doing well, and I hope to keep up with your life. But if we don’t, then I’m happy with those souvenirs of you that we call memories.

Philia,

Lucas