On Mourning and Celebrating Friendship

And a nod to Ivan Turgenev

Friendship— a topic I have observed at play, analyzed in depth, and remained bewildered by both on a personal level and in a grander, more general scheme this year, both on a mystifyingly grateful scale and, on occasion, in a more somber capacity.

It’s treated as almost like a universal law that the onset of age brings with it the shrinking of friends in one’s life. And I chuckle as I look back at my 19 year-old self thinking I was immune to such a prognosis.

Years ago, when I was not yet twenty, I went on a school-led trip to Stanford and Moscow as part of a student international relations delegation. In that group, I met a girl who, almost upon first sight, seamlessly acquired a beloved title in my mind, that of a soul sister. It felt like we were friends from birth, although I had just met her. We spent the entirety of our nights as roommates giggling the hours away as if we were mischievous 10 year-old girls, although our daytime obligations with diplomats and world leaders required nothing short of reserved solemnity (during which we still managed to chuckle in meetings like sneaky schoolgirls).

She lived abroad, and on our last day of the trip, I comforted myself with the thought that distance is of no consequence for friendship. Especially this unique and organic and sisterly type. I even pictured us years later, with families of our own, still basking in the sweetness of sisterhood.

We maintained contact, of course, and even on rare but a handful of occasions managed to meet up with each other in different parts of the world.

But this last time, when we met up once more in person after a long hiatus, our worlds silently collided, and the quiet devastation of that clash whiplashed me like an unexpected, somber wave of mourning.