Sarala Life — Life in Chapters: Careers, Canines, Cabernet & Courage

“Sometimes love doesn’t leave; it just changes its language.”

Chapter 2: There are some friendships that don’t fade quietly. They linger. They hum under your skin, the way a song does when you can’t remember the lyrics but the melody still aches in your chest.
This is one of those.

We met as colleagues, and somewhere between long workdays, heartbreaks, wedding plans, margaritas, spin classes, and dog-sitting (and dog-hiding), a friendship was born. It was real, the effort, worth it. We laughed, we cried, we showed up for each other. There were house moves, career pivots, late-night talks, and limes that turned into family gatherings. You were in my home, in my life, part of my husband’s circle, woven into our rhythm. You were my friend in every sense of the word — ride or die, through all the messy, beautiful layers of adult life.

And then, one Christmas, it broke.

It was a long day — for both of us, I imagine. You had been out doing charity work; I had been hosting and running on fumes, but a night ended with an impromptu lime that you were invited too, and attended . At the end of the night, exhausted, I fell asleep at our mutual friend’s home ( who was hosting us) while you stayed chatting with my husband and another mutual friend. What happened next, I only heard about later: that you were angry, hurt, that you felt disrespected that I “fell asleep on you.” When my husband told me, I felt gutted. Shocked, even. We’d been through so much — surely one night of me dozing off couldn’t unravel years of love, trust, and laughter?

When you called, I asked — maybe too quickly, too emotionally — what had happened. You deflected, I got angry, and the call ended with neither of us saying what we really meant.
And just like that, there was silence.
No Christmas messages. No “Happy New Year.”
Just absence — heavy and deafening.

In the months that followed, I heard through others that I had “ruined Christmas for you.” I never understood how or why. Every encounter after that — the polite avoidance at events, the studied indifference — pierced me in a way I couldn’t explain. It felt like losing family. You had been such a fixture in my home, my life, and now you passed me like a stranger. That hurt — deeply. It triggered something old and raw inside me: that familiar whisper of “you were never enough.”
Another relationship where grace wasn’t extended to me.
Another chapter where I felt I had to shrink to avoid being seen as difficult.

And if I’m being honest, I wasn’t innocent in that silence either — I too mastered the art of polite indifference, passing you by with the same careful distance that once wounded me. Were either of us right? No. But we were human — proud, hurt, and unready to meet each other in the middle.

I’ll admit this much: I could have handled it differently. I could have paused, breathed, and reached out with empathy instead of pride. But I was hurt. I felt blindsided, shamed for simply being human — for being tired, for letting my guard down. And when I’m hurt, my instinct is to retreat. My conditioning has long taught me that using my voice (in my personal life) causes trouble, that being “too much” makes me unlovable. So I stayed silent — and in that silence, the friendship withered.

Years later, I still think about you — especially at Christmas. I still feel a pang when I see your name or hear stories of you hanging out with people who once disliked and disparaged you, people who now seem united in the shared experience of not me. Maybe I helped build that community without meaning to. Maybe that’s the price of miscommunication left to rot. Sometimes I think about sending a message or adding your name to a guest list, but time has a way of widening the space.

Still, this friendship — this loss — has been one of my greatest teachers.

🌿 What I’m Learning (Still)

Silence isn’t peace. The things we don’t say often become heavier than the words we fear might hurt.

Ego wears many disguises. Sometimes it looks like self-protection; sometimes it’s just fear in a fancy coat.

We all carry our own pain. Maybe that night, you weren’t angry at me — maybe you were just exhausted, too. Maybe you needed grace I didn’t know how to give.

Childhood conditioning runs deep. When you grow up believing your feelings cause trouble, you learn to swallow them whole — but eventually, they eat you from the inside out.

Not every mirror is meant to last. You were one of mine — someone who reflected both my strength and my flaws. Losing that reflection hurt, but maybe some mirrors break to make room for windows — for seeing the world differently.

Regret isn’t weakness. It’s acknowledgment. It’s the tender ache that tells you you’ve grown.

Love doesn’t always return in the same form. Sometimes, all we get is the memory — and the quiet hope that we’ve both become softer, kinder versions of who we were.

I don’t know if we’ll ever speak again.
Maybe we weren’t meant to last a lifetime. Maybe we were meant to teach each other something — about loyalty, pride, forgiveness, or simply being human.

But this much I know: I carry pieces of you with me. In every toast, every laugh, I think of how fragile connection is — and how easy it is to lose something sacred when pain and pride get in the way.

This is my regret, my reckoning, and my release.
Not a plea for repair, but a whisper of remembrance —
for what was real,
for what was lost,
and for what remains in the healing, after you.

✍🏽 Author’s Note

This chapter was one of the hardest to write — not because of the details, but because of the honesty it demanded. Regret has a way of clinging to the quiet corners of memory, showing up in the moments we least expect. I’ve learned that healing isn’t about erasing the pain or rewriting the past; it’s about sitting with what was — the hurt, the silence, the missteps — and finding meaning in the fragments left behind.

Friendship breakups are rarely clean. They are messy, layered, and often unspoken. This one still echoes, especially around Christmas — a reminder that love, even platonic, leaves marks. I am still learning that closure isn’t always a conversation; sometimes it’s simply choosing to live with tenderness for the version of ourselves who didn’t yet know better.

If this chapter resonates with you, may it remind you that regret doesn’t mean failure. It means you cared deeply, even if it didn’t end the way you hoped. And that, in itself, is something sacred.

#healing #friendshiploss #regret #selfgrowth #healingjourney #reflection #emotionalhealing #femaleconnection #saralalife #lifelessons