Texts of this nature were not uncommon to receive in our family group chat, except for the tiny detail that we weren’t family — well, not in any traditional sense of the word, at least.
Rather, we were a group of five friends that came together during COVID-19 lockdowns — two couples, myself, and a baby.
We bonded over shared interests and developed new ones together. During the worst parts of COVID-19, our weeks consisted of us spending between three to five nights a week together with activities ranging from cooking dinner, casual wine nights with games, poolside hangouts, walks, and — when allowed — the occasional evening dining out. Not to mention overnight trips to Montreal for the girls and the occasional “family” vacation to a cottage or wine country. For those of us who weren’t parents to the baby, we treated him as our own.
We call ourselves ‘The Commune’
We talked about opening a wine bar and buying a shared cottage and lamented how things would be easier if we had a massive compound. We called ourselves “The Commune.”
During this time, the couple that was not yet married got engaged and then wed. We were all there celebrating our family that was not exactly family.
Yet, just over a year later, I got a text, “Brian and I are separating.”
I was at my office when the text came in, and my stomach dropped. My immediate response was to tend to the needs of my friend, ensuring that she was OK and offering emotional support. In reality, my hands started shaking, and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I was sick to my stomach.
When I got home from work, and for a few days following, I let myself cry, sometimes uncontrollably. I understood and supported the reasons for the separation — people deserve to be happy. But at the same time, I knew that things for the rest of us would never be the same again.
Their break up was also ours.
A clean split was impossible
Typically, the lines in a group of friends tend to be clearer to allow for a cleaner, less painful split, where the friends you bring into a relationship are the ones you leave with. In this situation, we were so deeply enmeshed in each other’s lives that a clean split was impossible.
Much emotional labor has been put on the parties not involved to navigate social events. We try to ensure that no tears are shed on birthdays, and to make sure everyone feels included and supported. This gets thornier as our friends venture into dating, and we need to accommodate the feelings of other new parties.
Over the year since the separation, the dust has begun to settle, and the relationship dynamics are calcifying, thanks, in large part, to self-selection. As with any breakup, things get easier with time; I never expected to experience those same feelings about someone else’s relationship.
The last time we were all together before the separation was a weekday in September — mere weeks before the break up — enjoying the last few days warm enough to sit around the edge of the pool, dangling our feet into the cool water. We drank wine and talked about the summer, about the things we had coming up over the next few weeks. We joked around in the ways family does. Things were normal. The couple with the child were heading on vacation and we were to see them upon their return. But that never happened.
How little regard we have for the mundane interactions with those we love.
We mourn the end of romantic relationships and, increasingly, the end of friendships. But how do you mourn the end of a relationship you were never in in the first place?
