Missing a friend

A couple of years ago, one of my closest friends moved away. And not just to another borough. Massively, across-an-ocean away. I really miss him.

Sometimes, when I feel the distance most acutely, I try to pin down what it means to miss someone. Is it physical or emotional? Can I make it go away?

Yoga teaches me the only thing that is real is the present. Missing in this construct almost always feels physical, like a discomfort: I am cold, I am hot, I am hungry. It’s about missing a layer of clothing or something sweet or salty or wet.

But missing a friend is also real and now. I want to go for a walk, and this walk is not complete without passing by my friend’s house and going up for a cup of coffee. The walk I want to go on includes him, somehow, as if it would not actually be a walk without the conversation we would have had, and which now is impossible, at least in person. I forget to breathe, suddenly. I ache.

As I observe this, I wonder for the umpteenth time why we insist on separating out the physical from all the rest. Clearly, our need for companionship and friendship is as real as a cup of coffee. Research showed decades ago that babies who aren’t held, die. Missing a friend is just one tiny atom of the universe of love we need to survive.

And so I sit. In the discomfort. In the missing. In the love.