I have a playlist that takes me back to when we just began to know each other. 

The magic of new beginnings fused with the realness of what this could be. 

My hair was dead then, limp and broken off, nothing like the wild, lively thing it is now. 

You had an awful haircut, a far far cry from your deliberately bald and oddly beautiful head now.

The friends we had were still weird then, unashamedly weird. 

We all drank so much in those days, for the feeling and not for the escaping. 

Sundays were the best days, after church, in some person's house, listening to music and roasting each other. 

Sometimes, the jokes got too mean, and fights broke out. And a minute after the fight was settled, someone would joke about it, and another would follow it, then another. 

It was all so chaotic and extraordinary, and ours. 

We knew how to hold space for people then and all the flaws, goodness, fire, and water they came with.

The world spun round, and one day, we woke up and weren't those extraordinary chaotic people anymore. Our magic had faded, the drinks had turned bitter in our mouths, and the music chafed against our ears. 

Time stopped being enough. We stopped being enough. 

You had new people now. I was sick of this new you. All the air was being sucked out of the collective lung we built like the cigarettes were sucking the life out of you. Still, you smoked and made these new people the beats to this song you seemed to be writing without me. 

I moved away and tried to build a new tribe.

The friends I tried to make never seemed to stay.

Something always just wasn't right. Nobody was just right. I wasn't right.

The first time we found each other again was at my aunt's wedding. 

You were the groom's distant cousin relative family friend, or something.

We stole glances at each other but never spoke.

What was there to say? Sorry you became an asshole? Sorry I became a hurt judgemental bitch? Sorry we had to grow up? 

Sorry for all the things we aren't particularly sorry for cause they had to happen?

My sister always said there are questions that answer questions and answers that question answers.

I had no idea what she meant by that, but the thought of you, what we used to mean and what we mean now makes it all make sense.

I had so many questions to ask you, and it was almost inevitable that your answers would give rise to more questions while answering the previously asked questions. It was all so confusing, this feeling in my chest, and they got more intense each time I saw the Instagram message you sent a week after the wedding. 

The message was simple - hi, how have you been? I typed and deleted over twenty answers. It took three weeks for me to respond with - I'm alright. How have you been?