Broken Vases

P.S: To all The Friendships that are Broken And Hurting

Written by Miranda Fanor and Favour Amoye.

Isn't it funny, how life takes us on journeys we never predict? Like how you meet your friend on the first day online and offline, and you thought ‘wow! I would love this person to stick around with me. Two months and you are vibing in the sweetness of a constant companion. Three months and you guys talk once in three days, six months and you're strangers. In between words not spoken there you are, broken. 

The drama of sinking friendships goes like this: 

In friendship, as we know, there are times when the ship indeed has sailed and the anchor is nowhere to be found but there are also instances of sheer novelties such as struggling with the fact that we can't get that 1.0 version of our friend we knew. It comes after you and you remember you and your friend's first rodeos; they lasted for two or three days to weeks. During that period, you have that awkward term we will like to term ‘The Break!’ That awkward phase was littered with raised voices, disagreements spanning hours over on the phone, or most likely - a litany of WhatsApp messages.

One party gives in for peace's sake and then there is that hush you dreaded. It comes in many forms but here is a sample, "It's morning, he hasn't messaged me. Fine! I won't message him". Both parties are at it but pride won’t let either and no one messages so you stare at your phone.

In one of your aimless scrolling on your electronic device, you see a picture of them. The truth stares at you: you miss him or her. You have put on your phone several times just to see if he has called back or texted back, you have inspected the volume button just to see if it's on silent and readjusted it severally, and still, he hasn't called, he hasn't texted and possibly, he hasn't flinched since yesterday's spat. You see the dreams you had of both of you spending eternity together and your chest becomes heavy. 

The idea of allowing situations to linger on in friendships isn't the best. Perhaps, in your case, it isn’t a rodeo but the enemy of time has made one of the parties outgrow the pact, too busy for each other. Your conversations are stale and sour, you hardly know what is happening in the other’s personal life. They were once friends, now they are strangers.

Ever since I had a spat with my friend in secondary school, I have grown with the ideology, that "anything that enters fire never comes out the same. The same I offer to you: you might never get the friend you knew back again. What we have now is a redefined persona, grown and might not fit your preferences. That person has seen shades of you, and  of them, and it is only fitting that they adjust. 

The new persona is a machine mix of new parts you don’t recognize and the familiar. Think of it like a vase. Think of yourself as a new vase and your friend (or any relationship) as the same. As you progress through life, experiences and emotion leave a dent, a crack, a hole punched through your vase. So here are you and your friend, two broken vases that have come together, hoping you stay and see them forever. Whenever you and your friend have a rodeo where you drift apart, those tears on your vases are beginning to widen; some holes grow deeper, some patches are torn up, some leak while some break into little pieces. What you refuse to see is the new version, not the same threadwork that you met, and to be honest, this threadwork is giving you a hard time. 

But then, what's so wrong with change? Weren't you broken before you met them? 

We are always the first to spew out "change is the only constant thing in life" but are seemingly hard-pressed to believe that such applies to our friendships. We ought to remember that we are all broken at various turns and to expect a wholesome piece is a lofty expectation. Pieces would be lost and each time they come back to you, they will come back to you patched, patched from the scars of your friendship. The question shouldn't be, what happened to us, but rather are you ready to take back a new version of them? More appropriately, like a Jigsaw puzzle, are you ready to fit into their crack and them into yours? Friendship is about growing and clumsily healing, it takes one who is ready to fit into those patches for them to work.  

Good news! There is a "happy ending" though; when you both graduate from hours of conversation into forceful conversations that barely last minutes when the jovial talks have now shelled into this "mature" phase where both of you are satisfied saying a few words and calling it a day almost immediately when you can treasure what you now have with them and not worry. Only when you graduate will you find a bond that is unbreakable-patched but has stayed closed through eternity. 

So look at it this way: at least they are here with you-present in your conversations and jokes. At least you came out of the fire a bit scathed and not burnt and if you ask me, that's fine, that's life, we don't get to always set the rules. Sometimes, we just have to follow them.

About The Authors

Miranda Fanor is a contributor to Arkore Write. She writes fiction, and articles and constantly wonders about the intricacies of human relationships. When she is not writing she is experimenting with new hobbies and music genres.

Favour Amoye is also a regular contributor to Arkore Writes. He writes Poetry, and articles and constantly draws from his wealth of real-life experiences to navigate his pieces. When he is not writing, he is on a chess board studying, analyzing, and playing a ton of chess games.