Tara moved to California on Thursday. My best friend in this whole loud city packed her life into boxes and now her Williamsburg apartment belongs to a stranger.
I helped her pack. That's a special kind of torture — folding a person's sweaters knowing you won't see them in them again, not casually, not on a random Tuesday because you both got off the L at Bedford with no plan.
The L train to Williamsburg was our train. For two years it was the route to her couch, her chai, her terrible reality TV that I pretended to hate and secretly loved. We'd meet at the Bedford Avenue stop and walk to her place arguing about which Shah Rukh movie was actually his best. (She said DDLJ. She was wrong but I let her have it because she was leaving.)
Nobody warns you about friend goodbyes. Everyone makes such a big deal of romantic heartbreak, the whole genre of it, the songs. But a best friend moving away is its own quiet grief and nobody writes you a sad ballad for it.
I took the L home Thursday night, alone, and it felt different. Emptier in a way that had nothing to do with the actual number of people in the car. I kept looking at the Bedford stop like it owed me something.
We made promises. We always do. We'll call. She'll visit in the fall. I'll go to LA when work allows. And we will, mostly, for a while, and then less, and that is the sad math of distance that I refuse to do out loud.
In Ahmedabad my friendships had roots that went back to age six. Here every friendship is a small miracle of two people choosing each other in a city of millions. When one leaves, the miracle doesn't undo. It just goes long distance.
Tara texted me from the airport: "don't get a new best friend." I texted back: "impossible. you ruined me for other people."
The L train will fill back up with new memories eventually. But for now I'll let it feel quiet. Some absences deserve the silence.
Text the friend who moved. They're missing the train too.
Love,