“True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.”
— Helen Keller

Friendships don’t always end with fights. Sometimes they just fade, without drama, without closure. One day they’re there. The next, they are just names in your phone.

I’ve always been selective about who I let close. I don’t open up easily, but when I do, I give my time, trust, and full attention. My circle is small by design. It’s rare to find people who are open-minded enough to follow my stretched logic, who are curious and sharp enough to enrich a conversation rather than just pass the time, and — most important of all — people I can truly trust. So I keep it tight. very tight.

Like anyone, a big part of my connections are casual acquaintances, easy, but never rooted. We share laughs, updates, coffee maybe. But the bond never reaches the parts that really matter. They’re part of my days, not my foundations.

That’s why losing a true friend feels like losing a piece of myself.
This year, I lost two.

The first was a university friend, a high-agency person who never waited for life to happen. He was generous, positive, and one of the few reasons visits to my native country felt special. His calls were unplanned gifts: a joke, some good news, a funny story or a new idea.
Energetic, helpful, and relentlessly positive, he made friendship feel easy. Then suddenly, a heart attack took him without warning.

The second was my last close link to my parents’ place, a friend since middle school. She was warm, kind, and radiated good energy.
For years, she had been a familiar presence whenever I visited. That kind of friend who made you feel at home in your own hometown. Then she stopped answering. I thought maybe life had moved her elsewhere or she just needed space. What I didn’t know was that she had been silently battling cancer for years, keeping it private.
For days, I felt drawn to call her, as her presence was tugging at me. When I finally did, her brother told me she was gone.

Different endings. Same void.

I still have a handful of close friends, people I’m genuinely grateful for. They are the rare souls who’ve stood the test of time and distance, showing up not out of obligation but because they truly care. These friends offer a refuge from the noise, a place where I can be unapologetically myself without fear of judgement. They challenge me, support me, and enrich my life. In a world that often feels shallow and transient, they are the steady anchors I can rely on.

But even with those I’ve chosen to move them even closer, something nags at me. When I reach out, it’s often one-sided. I promised myself to call, message, and check in to keep these connections alive. Yet, it’s rare that anyone does the same without a nudge.

That’s where the loneliness cuts deeper. I’m a lonely person by nature, used to carrying my burdens quietly, handling things on my own. I rarely ask for help. But when I do reach out, to feel alive, to catch a presence, to shift my mood but get silence back, it breaks something inside. It’s the slow realisation that if you stop trying, the bond might vanish, and they may not even notice. It’s the weight of caring more than you’re cared for.

Yet, in losing friends, I’ve learned something important: friendship isn’t always about equal effort at every moment. Life gets messy. People are busy, distracted, or simply on a different wavelength. What matters is the depth of connection when it does happen, and the memories you’ve built that no absence can erase, and the way a true bond still feels solid even after long weeks of silence.

So I keep reaching out. Not expecting the same back, but because I want to be the friend I’d want to have. Listening and sitting in the mud if needed.

Maybe today’s the day you send that message or make that call. You never know if it’s the last, or the one that quietly saves a friendship.

“A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.”
— C.S. Lewis