I had been thinking about texting my friend for three weeks. Every version sounded too casual, too intense, or like it had been edited by a committee.
In the end I wrote, I miss you. Do you want to walk this week? Then I put my phone down before I could add a paragraph explaining why.
We walked beside the canal and talked about almost everything except the reason we had gone quiet. It did not need a formal discussion to become less awkward.
Sometimes the brave thing is not finding the perfect words. It is sending the ordinary ones before fear has time to decorate them.