mono.

a couple of weeks ago, i took myself out for breakfast at my “og” favorite café. the one i basically lived in during my early 20s. the host sat me at a very familiar table. my table, really. back then, i was almost never alone at it. there would be 4 coffee cups, sometimes just 2. the only times i sat there alone were those random 8:00 pm breakfast-for-dinners when i had evening classes.

and then it hit me. more than a decade later, same place, same table… but everything else had shifted. old scenes started replaying in my head. conversations that spiraled from absolute nonsense to the kind of life ideas that kept you up at night. obnoxious laughter that made people stare but we didn’t care. confessions spilled like secrets that felt too big to hold. we were broke, ambitious, confused, but never alone. now, it was just me and my scambled eggs and silence.

and maybe what stung the most that morning was thinking about her. my then closest friend here in canada. the one i thought was ride-or-die. the one who saw me broken in ways i wouldn’t show anyone else. and then poof. gone. 11 years ago, she just disappeared. no fight. no fallout. no reason. nothing. just vanished. and honestly, it felt worse than a breakup. at least with breakups, you can point to a moment, an ending, some kind of story to close. with this, all i had were empty hands and questions that only ever echoed back. if i put it in today’s terms, yeah, i was ghosted. multo by cup of joe at best, soundtrack and all.

and then there were the 2 boys. the rest of our little crew. they’re still around, technically. just out there living lives i don’t really know how to measure against mine anymore. and i love that for them, i do. but i miss them too (i can’t believe i just said “i miss them” hahah). i’ve never been the expressive one, never the first to say “i miss you, i miss us.” i guess i’ve always been more of a vault than a megaphone. so i hold it in, but sometimes i wonder if i’m the only one who still longs for what we had. maybe. maybe not. but maybe that’s just how it is. c’est la vie.

syempre i’m a glutton for self-punishment aka masochista, that same week i went to the other café where i used to hang out with those 2 boys in our late 20s. our old spot was empty. i thought about sitting there, but i could already feel nostalgia creeping into tears, and i wasn’t about to cry over an americano in public. so i picked another table.

the older i get, the truer it feels: nothing is constant. life moves and we move with it. friendships shift. routines fade. people we once couldn’t imagine a day without slowly become names we scroll past, numbers we only message on special occasions, or memories we keep tucked away. and maybe that’s not tragic. maybe that’s just the rhythm of things. or maybe it’s mid-30s creeping in, maybe hormones, or maybe it’s just emotions i shoved down finally deciding to stage a comeback tour. “comeback tour” BTS yarn? chz.

and this nostalgia, it’s not the cute kind. it’s heavier, closer to grief. and no one really tells you how to mourn people who are still alive, just…absent? like they exist, but not in your current world anymore.

but i guess what i’m trying to remind myself is that those cafés, those tables, they’re not only about what’s missing. they’re also proof of what once was. we shared something real, and that’s why it hurts. but that’s also why it’s beautiful. maybe this is gratitude in disguise. for what it’s worth, i got to live those years with people i loved.

and maybe that’s the whole point. i can talk about it now because, out of all the people i’ve had to let go of, they were the hardest. the longest. and i think…i hope…i’m finally okay with that.

real talk: i wouldn’t have survived my 20s without them.