There is a person from my past, a lovely lady I was very much friend with. We shared an important chunk of our past together, we were high school classmates, and that time shaped both of us in many ways. Growing together, she blossomed into an absolutely beautiful lady, whereas I...heh, I am aging graciously but am thorouhgly mid 😅
Having moved to the US, I now live far away from her. While there is no substitute for physical presence, maybe virtual communication was not enough to keep her engaged. I put definitely more effort in the interactions: I would contact her asking for news, send her wishes for her birthday, NYE, the holidays. She would reply, of course, but that was it: she never took the initiative and sent me a nice message even just to ask "How is it going?". At one point, I realized that the interaction was too imbalanced and one-directional, and I just let it go. Right now, rather than a dear friend, I consider them an acquaintance. If you played The Sims, the relationship bar went from solid deep green, to a pale green very close to the center of the bar. And that's okay.
I reasoned that some friendships just end and then, stemming from that, that nothing is forever. The concept of "forever" is a funny one: we think we have time to do stuff, we think we are indefinitely projected in the future. The older I get, the less meaningful this statement becomes. The friendship ended but it left a lot of memories that I will cherish until the span of my life ends: I would have probably wanted to make more of these memories, but there in the grand scheme of the finiteness of my life, I am content with what I had.