My best friend in this city, Nandini, moved to Williamsburg in September. We used to live four blocks apart in Astoria. Now there's a river and the entire concept of the L train between us.
I know how this sounds. Forty minutes. Boo hoo. People do long distance across continents and I'm mourning a subway transfer.
But nobody warns you that friendship in New York is geographic. Proximity is the whole relationship. When she lived four blocks away we didn't make plans, we just existed near each other. She'd text "outside your door" with no context and I'd come down in my pajamas.
Now we schedule. We say "let's find a date that works" like two consultants. The friend who moved to Brooklyn is the same friend, but the texture is different, and the texture was everything.
I went out to see her new place last weekend. Took the N to the L, which on a Saturday is a test of faith. Her apartment is beautiful. Exposed brick, a plant situation that puts me to shame, a window that actually faces something.
We made chai and sat on her floor because the couch hasn't arrived and we talked for four hours straight and it was exactly like before. That's the cruel trick of it. The friendship hasn't changed. Only the distance has.
On the way home I cried a little on the L, which nobody even noticed, because crying on the L is basically a feature of the service.
I think growing up in a city means watching everyone you love slowly scatter across it. Your people end up in Bed-Stuy and Inwood and Jackson Heights and suddenly getting dinner is a logistics operation.
But Nandini texted me when I got home. "Chai soon?" And I realized the friend who moved to Brooklyn is still reaching across the river.
That's the part that matters. Not the distance. The reaching.
Text the friend you've been meaning to text. The train is always too long and never too long.
Love,