How I lost my best friend to time and learned to live with it!

I let the lights flood the darkened room and that was when I saw this petite woman sitting on the floor, blood draining from her face, her hair wildly entangled. I imagined that part, picturing her state as she hastily filled the empty space in my heart that she had vacated an year ago. She had wandered into my life for the second time, making me understand her pain over a phone call. 300 kilometers away, I felt as lost as a fly who after entering a room, couldn't find its way back. Hanging up half an hour later, I realized that I could not forgive my best friend. Not yet.

Like most friendships, ours happened when we weren't paying attention. It was a happy period of my life, where time was not a precious little thing. There were no Mondays or Tuesdays. They were just anonymous days where I only counted the hours I spent away from my friends. The routines didn't bother me, neither did the absence of a purpose in life. I had them- my three friends, and they were enough.

The winter of our third year together approached and somehow, without realizing I failed miserably when the testing time came. I stood nullified by my apprehensions and the guilt of hurting someone. I waited for her to clothe my naked soul but she never came. That's how I lost my best friend and with her gone, I felt free to be condemned. The year of slumber went by and when I heard from her again, the tables had turned and she needed me in the same fashion, I once did. Somebody had broken her heart and she searched for a familiar shoulder to cry on. How was she to know that my entire being had crumbled, when she left me in my darkest times? I couldn't offer anything except empty words as I only thought of her abandonment. 

It lasted for several months. The dilemma. However saddened I felt for her loss of strength, I will not deny that the sadness came riding on the back of reproach. But eventually, the stories, old and new, beguiled the remnants of my indifference towards her. The feuds of past seized me up sometimes but things started to go rather well between us. The third member of what once was our circle also hitched a ride somewhere in between. I liked that. Choosing to overlook the absence of the fourth one, my time with the other two gave me a sense of possibility of renewing what once was.

I believed that three months ago. The belief leaks out as each day passes by and I don't hear from my best friend. I fear for the transiency of it all and question if my forgiveness was in vain. Her fleeting appearance is matched with the arrogance of a celebrity, cast off as a net to ensnare me once again. I wonder if her need of my presence has expired now that she is feeling more whole. People say it isn't about time, it's about priorities. So, how am I supposed to respond to her absence again? 

I have other friends, lots of them, but you know how one of them always stands out and in times of trouble or joy, you only want to hear their voice. I know I will miss her and I also know that my friendship with her has run its course. With time, which now seems precious, I have learned the art of letting go because that is how it always is. A lot of happy days followed by a lot of questionable days, winters followed by springs,so artistically blended sometimes, you learn to love the good as well as the bad times.