Of love and lost friendships

I lost someone who I believed was one of my best friends, to ‘love’. Yes ‘love’ .We cut contacts and bid adieu to a 7-year old friendship – one built over love for the same books, The British library, Maths tuitions, Famous five, a zillion combine study sessions, Five rupee-softees and dislike for the same guys and teachers- over a phone call which I refused to answer.

I was hurt because there was another half of her life which she never told me about- a ‘secret’ relationship that everyone other than me knew.

She was hurt because I did not give her a chance to explain, or so I would like to believe.

At 17, she was a normal teenager in love and I was the nerd who beLIEved that the society always ought to be right.

I was brought up to believe that love and relationships were wrong and that being in a relationship is the worst thing you will ever do in life. Not that they told me the exact words, but people who had married people of their choice were looked down upon, their parents were blamed of wrong parenting or of giving too much freedom. 

It took me five more years and much efforts from a special someone and some close friends, to get over the belief and develop my own notions about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.‘Right’ isn’t about making the society happy but it’s about doing things that wouldn’t make your heart heavy when you go to sleep each night. As long as you can do that- you are doing fine.

So Dear Anne (!), if you are reading this , you might be frowning at my ‘hypocrisy’, but I want you to know that it wasn’t hypocrisy,it was ‘ignorance’.Ignorance that what's my 'wrong' need not be your 'wrong'.

From the unanswered greeting cards that I sent your way, and the way we looked at each other during the get-together four years back- I know things will never be the same between us.We have grown so much apart that we are probably strangers with mutual friends, but for the things that we know about each other.

But on some days like this, I still ponder over how our lives would have turned out if I had attended that one call of yours.I have no clue.
All I know now is that I should STOP thinking and click the 'Publish' button.