For as far back as a decade and more, I have been dealing with the anxiety of separation. And, I mean separation from friends and loved ones.

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It all started when I went to boarding school. I had these friends in church. They were my best buddies. And when I found out I had to go to boarding school, I knew I was going to miss them. When I came back after my first year in school, a lot of things had changed. It wasn't that they stopped being my friends, but somehow our friendship had evolved. I didn't expect things to change. Somehow, new friendships were being made and a lot had happened that I wasn't aware of. Everyone had changed and little did I know that I also changed. I wasn't really happy about this changes and I wanted things to go back to how they were but I knew it was an impossible thing. Life couldn't be stuck in limbo.

When I went back to school for my second and third year, things started changing at a fast pace. There was this sort of distance between my friends and I, that was majorly caused by the long distance between us. Our emotional connection was sort of weak and it wasn't just that. My longtime crush who I knew had the same feelings back was liking someone else. And I couldn't deal. I started having this anxiety that if I went back to school and we got separated more, it would be worse. This made me cry to my parents that I wanted to stop going to boarding school. But I couldn't give them a tangible reason why, and for the next three years, I kept getting separated from my friends and it was a lot. I was so homesick in school.

This also impeded my ability to make new friends in school. Yes, I spoke to classmates and walked with hostelmates but I just couldn't find it in me to build a deeper connection. I kept thinking what's the point of having deep connection with people if at the end of the day, life could separate us. I didn't have a best friend in school. I wasn't exactly a loner but I didn't have a clique in school either. I didn't want to make new deep connections because I feared that we would still get separated, which was actually inevitable. But at the end of the day, somebody broke down the barriers and became my best friend.

We shared a lot of things in common, especially writing. We had the same height and the same stature and we took care of each other. She was fragile and I was protective of her. I was like a mother hawk. I really loved her and we were always seen together. We were called twins even. She was my hostelmate at first, so we always walked from hostel to class and dining. But later on in senior class, she was put in my class and she sat at my back. That only made me happier. I was only sad when it was end of term and we had to go for holidays. But I got her number and always called her when I could sneak my mum’s phone. I was no longer really bothered about the friends I had at home. They could change for all I cared. I just felt like I would always have her, my favorite human. Until another person came into the picture in our final year and got her attention. They somehow got closer and I felt so excluded. I had this quiet jealousy burning within because I hated sharing my favorite person with anyone. I didn't know when the anxiety came back and the walls started coming up and I just sort of pushed her away. This hastened the ending of our deep connection. We still keep in touch from time to time though.

I graduated from secondary school with just a few of my classmates contacts. I tried to keep in touch with a few of them but I couldn't really sustain it. I’m more of a physical friendships person. I'm not really good at sustaining friendships online, though I try. It's something like an out of sight - out of mind experience.

Anyway, this kept affecting my relationship with people even after school. I didn't have a deep connection with anyone. When I got into a relationship with someone for the first time, somehow I was still guarded. I knew that we would be separated at some point. And that eventually happened when I was going to the university. We dated for four months and even though I really liked him and wished we could date for longer, I found myself ending the relationship. It wasn't majorly because we had some issues which we could iron out. It was because I couldn't stand being separated from him and not being able to see as much as we would like. I didn't want to come back and see that things might have changed. So, I ended the relationship, with lot of tears streaming down my cheeks.

When I entered university, I made a promise to myself to foster deeper connections with some people, no matter how few. I decided to keep an open mind and heart. I also tried to revive past friendships and I was surprised to see that many of them were eager to continue being friends. I actually made friends in uni, some were meaningful and some were meaningless. I met another lady that I really liked. I wasn't prepared to call her my best friend or anything of that sort. But she was my top one closest friend. We were thick as thieves. In the end, it still didn't work out. We had too many bad days and the friendship ended.

I tried again with a guy. I actually thought this friendship was going to last. I was willing to make it last. But it seemed that since the friendship actually started from a bad footing, it wasn't bound to go on for years. We were quick to always write each other off whenever we had issues; issues that we could communicate on and iron out. Instead, we will break off the friendship. Maybe, my separation anxiety issues were part of it among other things. We broke off the friendship for good recently and I wondered to myself, when does it get better??

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Does it ever stop? Dealing with the anxiety of separation? Does it ever end? Do i have to say goodbyes everytime? Does the goodbyes have to be more than hellos?

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This area of friendship has really been a touchy area for me. I have ended a lot of friendships and haven't even tried to make new friends because of this fear of separation and things changing. It has cluttered my social life, my relationship life.

For me to deal with it better and declutter, I have a lot of work to do on myself. I have to work on my issues and stop alienating myself from others. I have to work harder on keeping and remaining committed to my friendships. Even with the prospects of life diverging our paths, I have to keep the mindset that somehow, we would meet again. I have to just live in the present and enjoy it instead of spoiling relationships with thoughts about separation. I have started working on this but it still seems like a long way for me, but I know I will get there eventually.

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All images are mine

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