A Type of Grief that Few Talks About

Have you had some who who used to be really close friends but no longer?

I have and it was hard letting go.

The loyalty is real and so is the suffering. I love these people. The memories of the intimate and shared moments continue to fill my mind but dwelling in these memories pulls me into a depressing and lonely space. The grief of growing apart, without a fight, without a reason can be one of the loneliest feelings in adult life.

Maybe we have some commonalities. We still love these friends. And that’s why it’s confusing. We wish they can reach out. We wish to reconnect. We wish somehow the old times can be lived again.

Not sure about you, I do think about these friendships randomly once in a while. I remember the trips together, the hanging out, the inside jokes. In certain seasons, these friends would be the first ones I’ll call when anything happened, good or bad.

Often, I wonder if I should reach out. When I do, there's a strange awkwardness. Not sure if conversations would be natural or it would take much effort. Not sure how the meetup would be if there is a reconnect. 

It is a type of grief that I feel that few talks about.

We have language for breakups. We have language for losing someone to death. We even have language for toxic friendships that needed to end. But growing apart from someone I once was closed to, with no reason I can point to (except to say “life happens”), no villain in the story, I am not aware of any closure ritual for that. 

No funeral. No official ending. There’s just a quiet, lingering loss that we carry around like background noise. The noise is always there but never loud enough to address.

In Singapore, where everyone is busy, where the default answer to "how are you?" is "okay lah, surviving," I wonder if others experience this kind of loneliness?

We are grieving friendships from ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, even thirty years ago that technically (some still exists on WhatsApp). The last message was many years back. 

Think back at the friend who knew you in your JC, poly or university days. You were figuring life out, staying out late just because you could. They may not recognise the version of you now, busy at work, juggling work, managing a household, caregiving for your aged parents, dealing with teenager kids issues and a completely different set of fears. And you may not recognise them either.

Here's what few want to admit: people grow and change as a result of life circumstances. Priorities change. Responsibilites increased. Dreams are cast aside. 

That's life doing what life does.

But loyalty is a powerful thing. Especially for people who don't give trust easily. When you've let someone in deeply, you don't just switch that off. So you held on to the friendship. Except that it is not to the person as they are now, but to the person you knew then. To the friendship that once held you together.

And that holding on, as loving as it is, trap us in a grief that has nowhere to go.

And the most challenging part is we can't even be angry.

Anger might perhaps be helpful as Anger tends to have a direction. But this is just sadness with no address. We are missing our friends who are still alive and some might from the outside, looked like they are living their best life. Somehow that makes it worse, not better.

We don't want to be dramatic about it. No one would send a text out of nowhere saying “I miss our old times.” That just sounds weird. So we keep the grief folded neatly inside us, and we move on with our lives. 

We do it the Singaporean way. Tahan and carry on.

So what now?

Maybe we can acknowledge that the grief we feel is proportional to the love and friendship that was real. We don't mourn mediocre friendships. We mourn the ones that actually meant something. 

That feeling we might be trying to deal with? It's not a sign that something is wrong with us. It's a sign that we are someone who loved well. And perhaps redirecting the energy by asking “who else in this season can we also extend this love to?”

So the invitation here is learning to let go of the version of the friendship that can no longer exist.  Honor what it was. The friendship still counts. It shaped us to become who we are. We don't have to pretend we are fine as well. We don't have to rush to "acceptance." We are allowed to grieve something that has no formal ending.

And my hope is this article names a type of grief that is lesser talked about and provides us legitimacy to express and process our thoughts and feelings.

Written by Victor Seet
Activator • Communication • Strategic • Self-Assurance • Command

Victor is an accredited ICF Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC) and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) based in Singapore. He is also a Newfield Certified Ontological Coach and CliftonStrengths Coach. Victor facilitates teams to leverage their collective strengths, get clear on ways of working to strengthen team and interpersonal dynamics. Victor specializes in integrating strengths-based and ontological approach into his team coaching and leadership workshops. Victor is Director of Coaching and Leadership Development at StrengthsTransform™