I Wonder What Would Have Happened If We Had Been Just Friends

I wonder what would happen if we had just stayed friends.

Every thing has a time and a season. Some things are meant to last, and some things just don’t. It’s a simple, but sometimes difficult, fact of life we must accept. Yet at one point in time, you were really important to me. You were someone I looked forward to talking, sharing interests, and having conversations with. Time and circumstances changed the amount we are now involved in each others lives, and it’s probably for the best, right?

Sometimes I just wonder what would have happened if we had stayed friends instead.

Rather than following the infatuation that comes along with crushes and thoughts of what your mouth tasted like, if we had just focused more on who each other was.

We had some of that, I think. In the back of my mind I still recall memories of things you told me about yourself, and they are brought to mind every now and again. I hear certain songs from artists you recommended I listen to, and I just want to talk to somebody about how incredible they are. I want to message you and skip the small talk, the “how’ve you been?” and “how’s it going?” and just jump straight into the deep moments currently taking place. I wish we still had that bond, because you were so fascinating to me. I didn’t love you; honestly I never had the opportunity. I don’t really look back at you as an honest heartbreak-maybe more like a bruise. It can sting when I think about how things ended so vaguely and open ended. The kind of ending that means reaching out and trying to build a friendship shouldn’t be awkward or insane.

Yet I can’t seem to manage to catch up with you the way I want to. Sometimes I’m brave. Sometimes I’m able to have a short conversation with you. Yet all the anxiety, all of the thoughts of “Does he honestly want to have a conversation? Or is he just being nice?” and the worries about what you must think, of this girl from the past trying to talk to you like I just saw you yesterday. When honestly, I can’t even recall the last time I laid eyes on you.

I feel like reaching out to you again would give off the wrong idea though. I’m not wanting to fall back into your arms again. I’m not wanting to find your mouth at 2 a.m again.

We had our time, and it was great. It’s something I remember. I just don’t want that aspect of us anymore.

I simply wonder what would have happened if the connection we built had been based more on being open and having intentional conversations instead of flirtations that fizzled out and promises that didn’t come through. I wonder if we would be friends even now, in each others corner and part of each other’s lives, rather than a memory documented in an old photo album or words in a worn out journal, closed and stored away only to be flipped through occasionally.

Part of me wants to type out that message, be the one to reach out, be the one who isn’t afraid of what it looks like or how it appears. To be bold and brave. Yet I won’t in the end. I’ll just keep up with you by word of mouth of our friends and see your life through highlights on timelines.

Because we had our time. We didn’t choose that path, so despite the fact that maybe in some other alternate universe we could’ve had a friendship that defied the odds, we live in this universe. We live here, and we live with the results.

So we live without each other, and we will be okay.