Sometimes, people drift apart. The reasons are known or unknown—sometimes partially surfaced, but obscure. But paths diverge, and like Frost’s actual sentiment, neither path is easier than the other. It’s just the one you’ve chosen. (A close reading of the poem will show you this. If not, email me, and I’ll go through it with you.)

Yesterday, I thought of someone I hadn’t thought much of in years. We had a close, but complicated friendship at a time in my life where I was still finding my footing, finding myself. It’s not that I don’t know what to make of the relationship, but hindsight yields a different understanding. And in looking back, it’s also a reminder of growth.

I absentmindedly Googled this person, because I wondered what they’d been up to. Were they still doing what they loved? Were they happy? Even though I’m certain we had a very different understanding of the relationship, I never wished them harm. I still have many fond memories, although there are some choices I’d have made differently.

They encouraged my writing at a time when I needed that encouragement. We had a lot of things in common, too: a love of musical theater, Shakespeare, performing, wit and humor as a means of entertainment and connection.

They were also, on a few occasions, casually cruel and unkind, and in the intervening years, that stuck under my skin in strange ways. Because I’d been in the midst of healing from a particular heartbreak, unbeknownst to them. And one echoed the other, if not solely in my head, but also my heart. It took me years to untangle and to understand myself, but not in a timely manner that might’ve salvaged our relationship. We didn’t drift away so much as snap like a twig—there was no going back for myriad reasons, although I don’t think I fully understood that until years later. But it always felt bad that our evolution was so stark and so final, and I wondered if those feelings were shared or simply mine.

But the trouble is, when I Googled them, I discovered that they died. And it was tragic. And even though we hadn’t spoken in decades, a bit of grief knocked me sideways, sticking under my ribs, conjuring up old bits of conversation and joys and regrets. Shared intimacies and moments, silly inside jokes and callbacks to a different life. Laughing over dirty fortune cookies and getting to read a play they’d written, which I can no longer remember the name of. I still have a favorite book of theirs that they gave me on my bookshelf—inscribed by them. Even though I hate the book with the fire of a thousand suns, it survived many, many moves—and I could never manage to get rid of it.

I never really imagined that we’d talk again. I don’t think either of us were the same person we knew back then, although I know we’re always a nesting doll of all our earlier selves. But there’s something so terribly final about learning they’re not in the world anymore.

And it’s such a strange thing to feel loss, after all this time. To realize how deeply that relationship affected me and not simply in a negative way. To recall the sweetness and the softness and the humor that ran like a ley line through everything.

Maybe this is a reminder to reach out to someone from your past. Maybe this is a reminder to be grateful that some relationships only live in the past. Maybe this is a reminder that not all things and people stay, but the impact they make lasts beyond their lifetime.

It’s all of that and none of it. It’s everything I’ve said here and more. It’s plainly spoken and tentatively scrawled in the margins, half truth and half secret. The bird is not its labeled bones, after all. (Atwood lives rent-free in my heart. And if you don’t know that poem, Google it.)

Sometimes, we lose people long before we lose them. Sometimes, we love them at the expense of ourselves. And sometimes, it’s their love that helps us become more ourselves. We are, after all, a pastiche of all the came before us, a tapestry of woven love and loss and laughter.

And for that, I am grateful.

ICYMI, I’ve got a new poem at Small Wonders! You can read “When Death Comes, Look to The Tower” on their website, and I really hope you do.

If you want to preorder a copy of my forthcoming poetry collection, Offerings for Ordinary Gods, Inkwood is the place to go for a signed copy! In the US, simply write a note in the Instructions/Comments section during checkout. Outside the US, shoot them an email (inkwoodnj@gmail.com), and they’ll get your preorder sorted. And, as always, if you can’t preorder, ask your local library!