In life, things constantly are changing. You change jobs, change cars, change houses, change hairstyles, and you evolve and change on the inside as well. Relationships change, people change, some ties grow stronger and some grow weaker. And a lot of times, this change is good and for the better. When it comes to your relationship with someone, romantic or not, sometimes it’s just best for both parties to go their separate ways.

We’ve all had that best friend for years, the one you made plans to grow up with, the one you dubbed your maid of honor in your future wedding before you even learned to drive. The one you stayed with every weekend, texted 24/7, and the one that knew you better than you knew yourself. For some, that friendship is rock solid, as we’d like to believe every relationship is. But, life happens. Sometimes, that friend that you called in the middle of the night, crying over a stupid high school crush, doesn’t answer anymore. Sometimes, life gets hard, and makes them turn into someone you don’t recognize anymore. And sometimes, you realize that this person is not good for you, and even though you’ve tried absolutely everything to get them back, there’s nothing you can do.

It gets to a point when your friendship just isn’t the same anymore. It becomes one-sided. You’re always the one texting first, and making plans to hang out. You’re the one continuing to answer their distress calls when something goes wrong, just glad to be needed. You’re the one helping and helping and helping and it gets to a point where you’re putting so much into a friendship that used to be one of the most effortless relationships in your life.

It gets to a point when you realize that it’s not good for you anymore. This person has become a bad influence, a source of negativity that you can’t shake. You feel stuck to them out of loyalty and out of the past years you’ve spent sharing your life with them. It’s not good but you can’t let them go, they’re you’re best friend, right? And you are theirs, right?

It gets to a point when your parents start to wonder why they haven’t been around. The person that used to live at your house, and hung with your parents just as they’d hang with you. They wonder if everything’s okay, because they saw her in the grocery store and she doesn’t look the same anymore.

It gets to a point when you’re exhausted. You’re so tired of trying to put everything you could in and get nothing out of it. Your conversations get less and less frequent. Your texts “just to check in” go unanswered. You’ve given up trying to make plans to hang out, and watch sadly on Snapchat as they spend yet another night going out a town or two away with their new friends.

It gets to a point when you have to let them go. As painful as it is, you have to stop trying. You try to stop worrying about them. You try to put them out of your mind. You’re angry but you’re more scared for them, scared that they’ve gone down the road of no return. They’ve turned to other things or people, and you know you’ve done everything you could to try and reach them. You stop texting first.

You don’t hear anything for two and a half months.

And it gets to a point where you let them go.