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I was 15 when I met Brittany.
We had this easy, natural friendship—the kind that just “clicked.” We met in summer school, both making up for our less than stellar effort in our previous year’s math class.
We spent more and more time together as summer went, and eventually, things shifted.
We started to get closer. And closer.
And then, as summer was winding down and we found ourselves sitting in a hot tub by ourselves after our friends had left for the night, we kissed.
A romantic relationship had been brewing under the surface and we had finally leaned into it.
But before we really got into it, she put her hand on my chest and said something I’ll never forget.
She sat me down, looked me in the eye, and said:
“Dolphin, our friendship really matters to me. Promise me that no matter what happens, we’ll stay friends.”
Now, at the ripe old age of 16, I meant it when I said, “Of course.”
I cared, too. I agreed with her.
I really thought I would.
But when we did end up breaking up—after she had gone away for Christmas vacation, after the spark had faded, after the things that felt hard didn’t seem “solvable,” after I chose not to lean into finding deeper meaning in our connection—I didn’t know how to keep that promise.
I didn’t have the tools. But more important than tools, I didn’t have the context, the maturity, the commitment to have the conversations that needed to happen for our friendship to reform.
And so, instead of sitting down with her, instead of choosing to communicate with honesty and care, I just…let it go.
It was just easier that way.
And I think, in the back of my mind, I assumed there would be time to do all that.
That I’d come back, patch things up, make things good again.
We do this all the time, don’t we?
Then, about a year later, I got the call.
“Hey, Dolphin… (A long silence) Have you heard what happened?”
It was a friend of ours on the other end of the line.
“No,” I answered.
Another long, pregnant silence…
Then came the words that split my world in two:
“Brittany is dead. She died last week in a snowboarding accident.”
The air in the room disappeared.
Just the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.
I barely remember what I said next.
“I gotta go.”
I hung up. Sat down. I stared at nothing for what felt like an eternity.
And in the weeks and months that followed, I changed.
Not just because I had loved her (she was my first girlfriend), or because of all the words I never said.
But because I saw—in the most irreversible way possible—what happens when we aren’t open, honest, and courageous in the way we communicate with the people we care about.
I had been too young to understand how uncertain the future of our relationships are.
How easily we assume we’ll have time. How often we let things go unspoken, thinking we’ll come back to them someday.
And then someday never comes.
That experience burned something into me.
I made a commitment to myself that day:
Never again.
Never again would I avoid the conversations that mattered.
Never again would I let the fear of discomfort keep me from telling people how I really felt.
Never again would I assume I had time to make things right later.
I have continued to grapple with this commitment.
I still have times when I fall short of my commitment.
Not because I don’t care but because it’s not always obvious where the line is between gracefully holding what’s hard for us until we’re clear what is good or right to share and when something is needing to be shared.
What I have become more clear about is that when I lean into saying the things that feel hard, scary, my relationships deepen and strengthen.
I continue to strive for this ideal.
And it’s something I see so many men struggle with—the hesitation to say what really needs to be said because it seems easier or involves less conflict.
The things they want to tell their partners, but don’t.
The things they hold back from their friends, their family, themselves.
The words they assume they’ll have time to share later.
But later is an abstraction. It doesn’t exist.
There’s only now.
If there’s something you need to say, say it.
If there’s someone you need to reconnect with, do it.
If you’re stuck in a place where you don’t know how to have the hard conversations, learn how.
Because this is one of those lessons that you don’t want to learn the hard way.
Because life is too short for unsaid words.
And you never know which conversation will be your last.
If this resonates, send me a message.
Say what you need to say.
Now.
~
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