Fin

Someone asked me what my defining trait is. Without batting an eye, I replied: loyalty. 

When I speak of loyalty, I do not mean it like a lover is to her partner. I mean it like a dog would to its master. 

I am a loyal friend. I can look anyone in the eye and say this loudly. When I was younger, I put my whole faith in the adage that “friendship is forever”. I ate that shit up. I believed very word, every letter of it. 

Today, I wrote a letter to a friend I considered dear to me and told her that we should forget each other. 

She was a big part of my university years. I am quite sure that if I would relive each memory, those that we had was one of the happiest. Things have changed. We no longer talk to each other. She, actually, refuses to talk to me because she does not like the fact that I am critical of the government. 

It was not painful. In fact, I felt relieved. This is someone that, at one point in my life, I would have died for. 

When I was 22, I hated the idea of friendship. I was depressed then and I missed my friends. I hated the idea of friendship because I was haunted by happy memories that I no longer can return to. You know what they say about happy memories? That they would be the most painful part of farewells. The happier you are, the more painful it would be. And it was painful then. To remember and not be able to go back. And so I started being more aloof. I didn’t put an effort in making new friends. I do not want to go through the pain of missing them once we part.

But I’m a loyal person, am I not? I met people that I clicked with and we became friends. I made stronger friendships as I grew older. And I could never be too grateful that it happened.

I wrote her a letter. I told her that I am parting ways in good faith. I have forgiven her and now I will forget her. It seems so easy. Truly, it is a different kind of power to completely cut off a person from your life.

I feel free.