I’ve always heard that you lose friends as you grow older, but I never thought about how difficult that would be until I experienced it. Even though losing friends is apart of life, sometimes it’s people you never expected to lose.

I’ve lost friendships with a few people who are amazing. On one hand, losing great people in your life sucks. On the other hand, all of those experiences make us who we are. I think it is human nature to think of everything you could’ve or have done wrong and blame yourself. The thing is, blaming yourself isn’t productive unless you learn from your mistakes.

What I have learned from losing friends is that I need to be more gracious. I was so scared of being hurt that I wasn’t able to deal with conflict. I thought I would truly “make it” in life when I stopped having conflict with others. Come to find out, conflict is apart of living. Not that you should be fighing with your friends and family for no reason, what I mean is that everyone is human and there will be dissagreements. Instead of communicating and dealing with things head on, I ran. I ran away from anything that could potentially hurt me. In doing that, I know I’ve hurt good people.

I reached a peaceful place this past year. All of these memories I had with past friends would come up and it would make me feel uncomfortable. I deleted photos, I deleted contacts, I unfollowed, and I realized I wanted to erase people. Trying to erase history was my way of healing or so I thought. Something clicked for me last year and that was the realization that these people are human in the same way I am. They hurt, just like I do. It wasn’t just my conflict, it wasn’t just my pain, it was not just my story, it was theirs too. After having that thought, I literally felt a change within myself and it’s been that way ever since. Running away from the past and pretending relationships didn’t happen are both selfish acts. I wanted this ideal life that I created in my head and if the people in my life weren’t fitting in anymore, I didn’t want to try to make them fit. By that I mean when a dissagreements arose, I didn’t try to resolve it. I don’t have regrets about losing friends though. I do believe people can be close and eventually realize they aren’t good for one another.

What has been hard for me is figuring out what to do with the love for these people. Being friends with someone is sacred to me. When I am friends with someone, they know that I love them and that I will always be there for them. When you end your friendship with someone, it doesn’t erase all of the love you have. What has helped me personally, is journaling and writing music. Those are two ways that I can express my emotions and not have to include the old friend. I always think of reaching out to my old friends and seeing how they are, but I never do. I never want to make them feel uncomfortable or have uncomfortable memories. If you’re one of my old friends reading this, I hope you’re living the life you desire and I hope life is treating you well.

I’ve learned a lot from past friendships, I want to aknowledge those things. One friend taught me about passion and creativity, they truly made me believe in myself. One friend taught me how to slow down and how to enjoy the beauty in my day to day. One friend taught me to love hard no matter what. One friend taught me curiousity, to always be open to learning more and experience new things. Well now, I’m tearing up thinking about the love I’ve shared with people that aren’t in my life anymore. I am grateful for the time I’ve had with old friends.

Anyway. Losing friends is heartbreaking, definitely more so than any romantic break up I’ve had. I get sad and I reminise on all of my happy memories, I hope they hang on to those memories as well.

I love all of you that read these ramlbing posts until the end ❤