This Thanksgiving felt different. Maybe it was because my family went out for hot pot instead of cooking for the first time in my 21 years of Thanksgivings. Or maybe it was because Thanksgiving traditionally marks the beginning of the holiday season, and this year will be the first without my best friend, Talia.

Either way, it felt appropriate to sit down and reflect on the deep emptiness I felt this break.

This is my first column for Pipe Dream, a breaking of the strictly enforced prohibition on writing for news and opinions at the same time. In my over two years with this organization, I’ve been trained to set personal belief aside in the name of objectivity.

But ever since my friend died last April, I’ve been itching to write a column. Why? I’m not sure. Maybe I hope that the formality of the publishing process, writing this with my peers editing it in mind, will force me to reckon with some hard truths. Or maybe I hope to find some catharsis in seeing this on paper.

Returning to one’s hometown is universally acknowledged as bittersweet, and during the holiday break, even more so. Without Talia here, though, I feel more incomplete than ever. We made so many memories in our little corner of suburban New Jersey, and when she lost her fight with brain cancer, a little part of me, the one that viewed my hometown with a guarded nostalgia, died with her.

Over these months, I’ve learned that grief is a cruel, funny thing. The sheer weight of losing her has been near incomprehensible, and in my endless search for closure, and maybe a little comfort, attempting to come to grips has taken my all.

Worse than the obvious physical loss is the mental one — from constantly thinking and talking to and about her to well-intentioned loved ones walking on eggshells when they ask about her. Honestly though, I feel relieved when I get the opportunity to describe her beautiful personality and the mark she left on me. It’s as if, for a few seconds, she’s not gone, and I don’t have to think too seriously about one of my life’s greatest losses.

To answer an earlier question, I write to see something tangible confirming what I already know: I loved her, and I miss her terribly. It’s been about seven months now, and anyone who’s experienced this pain knows all too well the fear that it’ll never go away.

Despite my pleas that change is good and being uncomfortable is a prerequisite for growth, familiar words to anyone who knows me, I sometimes crave my life from just a few years ago, before my friends and I grew up and life was simpler.

The days when, before any of us could drive, we used our bikes and feet to get around. When we’d sit together on a ledge in a park trail near the houses where Talia, and another friend, Paulette, grew up, talking about the years I now call the present. When, after high school, we would gather on our friend Alex’s back porch and eat his food and drink his AriZona iced teas. Though I still return to my hometown and see and talk to Paulette and Alex constantly, it’s been longer than I care to admit since I’ve walked that trail or sat on that porch.

Life moves quickly, and unforgivingly. Soon, I’ll graduate college and get a job. And later, I’ll get married, buy a house and set down roots, in all likelihood far away from my hometown. By that point, I suspect the pain associated with Westfield — the loss and confusion I felt when I returned for Talia’s funeral — will begin to fade.

No matter how far I go or how much time passes, however, in fleeting pockets of time, I’ll be 16 again, Talia will still be here and life will be simple. And I hope I’ll learn to live with it.

Brandon Ng, a senior double-majoring in history and economics, is Pipe Dream’s editor-in-chief. 

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.