FaceTime chimes breaks the silence of my room, and the face that appears is tan and dotted with freckles. I haven’t seen this face in person in over two years, and it’s been over a month since we’ve spoken. Sarah smiles from behind the screen, her white teeth a contrast against the tan face that’s spent the past few weeks in South East Asia.
“It’s been too long!” I wail. Half of me is serious, the other half joking to mask the pang of absence. I start with pleasantries, to avoid dwelling on the pain. “Catch me up on life!”
Our conversation ebbs and flows. I get lost in old memories, her adventures, and the thrill of my upcoming nuptials. Earlier in the day, I discovered an envelope waiting for me on my kitchen table. Stuffed inside was an invitation with large, curled lettering that read, “Bridal Shower in Celebration of…” It took a moment before my brain kicked in and I realized the last two words were my name — Meagan Prins — which is months away from changing.
If I dwell too long on the stress and anxiety of the ongoings of my life, I might crumble. That doesn’t stop me from telling Sarah, however. She is kind and nods her head along with my stories and scattered thoughts. I listen as she beams with excitement about plans to move to the Philippines and start a nutrition clinic. Our call ends as we promise to catch up again soon, but when we hang up, there is a hole despite the recent connection.
We’re in different spots in life. We care about different things. Our lives have changed and the closeness we once shared now waivers.
Not five years ago, we lived together in a grungy basement apartment as roommates, growing as close as sisters. I long for the nights where things were quiet, street light pouring in through a solemn window between the shapes of our beds while we would talk until we ran out of words. I know Sarah is like me, mourning what we once had, knowing it will never return.
As life goes on, our friendships change. When we marry, our lives and relationships change. My connection with my brother and my family and even my fiance will evolve, never to remain the same. And with this knowledge, a sadness creeps in.
Saudade
The lunch in my stomach curdled. I laid still among the hot metal and flaking red paint of the merry-go-round as the sensation spread. I wanted to scream and cry all at once, and not because the whirring ride was making me sick. My sister had just informed me my best friend would be moving. In fifth grade, you’re old enough to understand a move means the end of your friendship and beginning of heartache.
To this day I can remember how we both wore Adidas sneakers, played soccer and football with the boys at recess, and the way her mom would make us peanut butter and marshmallow cream sandwiches when I stayed over. Though on the cusp of becoming a married woman, I miss those days. I think most of us carry fond memories of friends we once had, the music we listened to, or the conversations we had.
In English we call this nostalgia, but to me, it seems far deeper than that. The Portuguese call it saudade. Saudade is a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.
It often carries repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. This one word encompasses perhaps what most of us feel when we feel the emotions of evolving friendships. Some of us feel it when we listen to old music that conjures up the past. For others it’s days and moments that glimmer in our memory— much like my evenings in a grungy apartment with Sarah.
Yet with this knowledge of the past, change is inevitable. Part of me cringes at change and part of me craves it. Change demands exploration and adventure, to be flipped through, dug into, and figured out. My heart races to find out what will happen in these next chapters of life, and I can’t seem to put down the novel.
But there is another side of change, too. There’s the side where I’m dizzy on my back at the playground, knowing I’ll lose something. In the next act which characters will stay, and which ones will go?
Love Letters Of The Heart
“Above all, keep a close watch on this — that you are never so tied to your former acquaintances and friends that you are pulled down to their level. You must choose whether to be loved by these friends and remain the same person, or to become a better person at the cost of those friends… if you try to have it both ways you will neither make progress nor keep what you once had.”
— Epictetus, Discourses
As my life rapidly changes, it appears I’m the one who’s now moving away. I’ve fit all my cardboard moving boxes into a sedan and hightailed it out of the state, away from several relationships that took years to cultivate. This go round, I’m the one changing.
Change seems like such a threat to friendship. When we watch characters on TV or find ourselves captivated by a book, the protagonists don’t stay static in moments of bliss or camaraderie. Frodo and Sam part at the end of the Lord of the Rings. In The Lion King, Simba leaves Timon and Pumbaa to become king. The characters move in and out with each other — like the tide — ebbing and flowing in conflict and resolution, in closeness and separation.
Friendship differs from the commitment of love, the bonds of family, or the obligations of acquaintance. Friends are the people we keep or let go in every stage of life as we grow. It’s the only relationships we seem to have that are completely voluntary.
As we change and grow, so will our friends. We’ll long for the past, sometimes stuck in the fond memories of saudade. Others of us will be lucky enough to have lifelong friends that continue to shape us for the better. This all may sound depressing, but it’s important to remember that while we may not be who we were yesterday, we can still stick together today. We can still fight to be there for our friends tomorrow.
And when change ultimately comes, the memories we share will be there like love letters written on our hearts.