Our society has normalized patterns for grief, anger, other reactions to losing a romantic or sexual relationship/partner (e.g. breakup, divorce, escape, etc.) We have not done the same for losing platonic relationships/friends. There are no canonical expectations or narratives.

Platonic relationships are every bit as important+meaningful as romantic+sexual ones. In challenging societal hierarchy that prioritizes romantic/sexual partners as necessarily more important than platonic friendships, we need space for mourning the loss of friendships too.

There are many canonical narratives about the different kinds of breakups/losses of romantic/sexual partners. (Focusing here on loss other than death, e.g. end of the relationship.) Sometimes it's immediate. Other times it's gradual. Some are waxing/waning, on-again off-again.

We canonically reconize that for romantic/sexual partners, there are permanent breakups and temporary ones. We have stories of rekindling long lost love. Stories of years/decades of healing from beautiful love... or escaping then healing from violent abuse masquerading as love.

The only widespread narratives I can think of that we have about losing friendships are narratives about kids moving to a new town and losing their old friends, or of losing a friend to outright and violent betrayal (like Brutus to Caesar). Those are both real and valid.

At the same time they don't capture the conplexity+variations of the many losses that happen in platonic friendships, as do the canonically available narratives of losses in romantic/sexual relationships. They don't capture in-betweenness, liminalities, ambiguities, borderlands.

And of course while all forms of grief and loss are distinct and separate, and cannot ever be compared, it's clear that our society doesn't treat loss of friendship as the grave and serious loss that it is. There is no space allowed to mourn because it's undefined+unrecognized.

Losing a friendship (or even losing the closeness of a long+deep friendship) is a form of ambiguous loss. There isn't even the ability to clearly articulate what happened, because they often don't sever cleanly+the person is still alive. But evidence of the loss is everywhere.

Not everyone uses this language, but oftentimes someone's closest+most trusted friends are chosen family. They are family. Not like family. They are. We pour enormous emotional energy+love+care into our closest friendships just as with close trusted relatives+romantic partners.

I talk often about our investment in the myth of scarcity in the context of social justice (it's the pot of crabs pushing each other down to try to escape boiling water). I want to challenge it in our interpersonal relationships too. We have an abundance of love+care to offer.

I want us to be able to value+honor all relationships in our lives, whether romantic, sexual, familial, or platonic. None are more important or lesser than another. Then maybe we can also make space for necessary grief when we lose any of these relationships.

Just as someone might miss a past lover's tender embrace or favorite song or homecooked meal, or an estranged aunt's warm smile and laughter and garden, they might also miss deeply and rawly a now-lost friend's jokes, conversations, care, loyalty, and time.

"I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind."

Emily Brontë

People in our lives immeasurably+infinitely impact us.

Here is a very tiny start to a canonical music repertoire for recognizing these losses:

* "Big God" by Florence+the Machine
* "I Miss You" by blink-182
* "Phantoms" by Azam Ali
* "Gomenasai" by t.A.T.u.
* "Death By A Thousand Cuts" by Taylor Swift (replace "baby" with "friend")

Tiny start cont.:

* "Keep The Streets Empty For Me" by Fever Ray
* "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles
* "Goodbye" by Apparat
* "I Loved You" by Alice Russell
* "In The Winter" by Janis Ian
* "I Am A Rock" by Paul Simon
* "Breathe Me" by Sia
* "Hollow Like My Soul" by Emilie Autumn

Tiny start cont. again:

* "The Closing Door" by Glen Hansard
* "I'm Gonna Get Through This World" by The Klezmatics
* "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones
* "Oh My God" by Jars of Clay
* "This Time Imperfect" by AFI
* "Dream On" by Aerosmith

Tiny start cont.:

* "Someday You Will Be Loved" by Death Cab For Cutie
* "Misery Loves Company" by Emilie Autumn
* "FEEL." by Kendrick Lamar
* "Cathy Catherine" by The World/Inferno Friendship Society
* "Copenhagen (Let Me Go)" by Vienna Teng
* "I See A Darkness" by Johnny Cash

Here is a playlist with this beginning of a canon: https://open.spotify.com/user/126472805/playlist/3yzP9mQcTc7owsx4J9Dp0z?si=jJcWYRXGRrmcEv4DCwR4sg