Meera is moving back to Bangalore in September, and I found out over samosas in Jackson Heights, and I have not been okay since.
We met three years ago at a fashion event where we were the only two brown girls in the room, and we clocked each other instantly across the crowd, the way you do. We've been inseparable since.
Wednesday we took the 7 out to Jackson Heights because when things are hard we need our people, our food, our streets. We ate at the Nepali spot on 74th, then got kulfi, then just walked under the string of sari shops all lit up.
That's when she told me. Her mom's health, a job offer, the ache of being away too long. All the reasons that are the right reasons. All the reasons I couldn't argue with even though I wanted to.
Here's what's breaking me. Meera is the only person in New York who is fluent in both my worlds. She gets the L train jokes and the Bollywood references. She knows why I go quiet after calls with my mother. She can code-switch between my American life and my Indian heart without missing a beat.
With her I never had to translate myself. That is the rarest thing a friend can give you here.
Everyone tells you moving to New York is hard. Nobody warns you that the friends you make here leave too. That this city is a train platform, everyone passing through, and sometimes the person you love most is on a different track.
I'm happy for her. I mean that with my whole chest. Going home to family is not a loss, it's a homecoming. I of all people understand the pull of that kitchen, that mother, that whole other sky.
But I'm allowed to grieve too. I'm allowed to sit in Jackson Heights and cry into a kulfi about my best friend leaving.
We promised video calls. We promised she'd visit. We both know it won't be the same. Distance changes the texture of things.
She hugged me hard at the 74th Street station. "You'll be fine," she said. I don't know if I believed her.
Hold your people close. They don't stay forever.
Love,