The Kind of Heartbreak We Don’t Usually Talk About

Blessing Orogun February 6, 2023 2

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In my second year in junior high school, I made a friend. No, actually, she made me. I was an introverted teen you see, still am but not as socially withdrawn as I used to be then. So, it was a Saturday morning and we needed to do laundry. 

Somehow, we got talking about a drum to store water (it was a boarding school) and that was where we hit it off. She was a new kid in school that got recently transferred and she needed a friend; I did too. And boy was she a beautiful soul. She still is and I hope she gets to read this.

Our dorm rooms were opposite each other and so we would do almost everything together. She would come to my room so we could observe our personal devotion together. We would go for classes together, the dining hall, the mini-mart, for sports, for prep, you name it.

Heck, we even got to twin on our house wears sometimes. It was such a good time to be alive. She would make me laugh my stomach out. We laughed at the stupidest of things and we were happy. It was just one of the purest friendships I have ever experienced.

But then it wasn’t always so rosy. The same way we could laugh at the stupidest of things was the same way we got into fights at the slightest irritation. Now, that I think of it, I can’t even remember anything in particular that made us fight but we did get into a lot of squabbles with each other. 

Of course, we always made up but that didn’t guarantee that we wouldn’t fight again. Fights are a part of healthy relationships but what do you do when they get too much?

So, one day, we had gotten into one of our usual squabbles. I had gone out of class during break time and when I got back, my friend said we needed to talk. Those words spelt doom; I should have known but my naïve mind just believed that we were going to work things out as usual. 

We stood at a corner of the classroom and that day, I heard those cruel words for the first time in my life, “Blessing, we can’t be friends anymore. It’s over between us.” Right then, my heart broke. I heard a thud in my heart and I couldn’t believe my ears. What just happened? Did she just break our friendship up? I can’t express the pain I felt adequately in words but it hurt badly. 

I mean we were so close that we had people coming up to us wanting to join our friendship circle. I had questions I wanted to ask. Like who was trying to sabotage what we had? Who had she been listening to? Who put her up to this? But there’s a little straight thinking you can do when you have just been rejected and your heart broken. I was eleven years old by the way.

Things went downhill pretty much after that. By the third year of junior high, we were more like acquaintances. In senior high, we became friends again but things never went back to the way they were. Over the years, we’ve tried to keep communication open. 

Now, we just wish each other happy birthdays and reply to funny memes once in a while. We haven’t seen each other in years even though we’re in the same city. And it is fine, I totally understand. We are all just swamped up with the challenges of adulthood.

Some friendships are just for a season but that doesn’t make it hurt less when we lose them. I’m talking about quality friendships here. What I miss the most about this friendship is how free we were to bring out our inner child and how comfortable we were to just be each other. 

It’s hard to find such pure, childlike, unadulterated friendships these days. This is the kind of heart break we rarely talk about. When our friends move to another state or relocate to another country and we lose them; we’re happy for them but it still breaks us to not have them be in our lives anymore. 

When they know everything about us; our secrets, flaws, dreams, ambitions and all; and we just drift apart without warning, what do we do with the vacuum they leave? What do you do when the person you shared some of your most cherished moments with becomes a stranger to you? What happens when they die and leave you in this cruel world? The most important need of the human soul is genuine connection. 

What do you do when you find a raw and deep connection with someone and it abruptly comes to an end? What do you do when you have news and you want to share it with them and you remember that y’all don’t vibe like that anymore?

Friends come and friends go but some friendships are irreplaceable and when they end they leave the most debilitating effects. So, when are we going to start talking about the heart break of genuine platonic friendships?