To The Friend I Left Behind,

Hey there old friend. It hasn't been that long since I've last seen you, or heard from you. It has however been a while since we've been friends like we used to be. We've known each other since we were kids, been through hell and back, and yet here we are....not friends anymore. Besides the obvious reasons why this happened which we both know, i feel like there was more to it. Things that went unsaid, which caused a pile up of silence and therefore we stopped REALLY talking to each other.

I want to just put this out there, that I DON'T HATE YOU. I never could, there's too much history between us for that to ever happen, on my end at least. I also want to say that I don't think you're a bad person. I just think that life happens, situations happen, and we change. We change until we're the people that we're meant to be....I just don't think you're there yet. You're a sweet, caring, and motivated person who deserves every good thing that comes your way. On the same token, you also need to learn to forgive, to see things from other people's perspectives, and maybe count to 10 before you get angry. We're all human, and I don't hold it against you, but we're adults now, and losing your temper isn't an acceptable excuse anymore. On either side, yours or mine. This friendship started a 2-way street and it'll end the same way.

For what it's worth....I am sorry. Maybe not for the reasons you'd like me to be, but I am in fact sorry. Sorry that we couldn't talk it out like we always did, sorry we had to end a friendship the way we did, I'm sorry that you think things of me that are just not true, or were true back in the day and just aren't anymore. I've never lied to you, hidden things from you, or stolen anything from you (take that as you will.) As backhanded as this sounds, I'm sorry that you feel that I'm capable of doing the things that you think I did. Because if you really think that of me, what kind of friend have I been to you?

You've been one of my dearest friends for as long as I can remember, and to think that now we've gone our separate ways permanently is actually very sad...to me anyway. I've learned over the years that speaking for other people is useless and usually backfires. Maybe we aren't the same people we were when we were younger, the people who thought this friendship was everything and could withstand anything. By anything I mean...time, distance, life. That life would often drift us in different directions and yet we would somehow manage to reconnect and pick up where we left off.

I'm going to miss that about us. I'm going to miss the random sing-a-longs while on the way to our lunch dates, miss the inside jokes that throughout the years have continued to pile up..the jokes that will now be pushed into the back of our minds and eventually forgotten. I'll miss our Instagram hashtags, throwback Thursday photos, and continual need to take pictures of everything we ever did. I'll miss our heart to heart chats about life and the future. The chats about when we would be in our 30's and laughing about the stupid thing that happened that one time we went to the bar.

Now, those are gone. The what if's, the what could have beens, the future of our friendship. I won't say I haven't been mad at you throughout this ordeal, but I know you've been mad too. I'm not too sure when we stopped telling each other what was bothering us and just let it pile up until we exploded. That was never us. We used to be able to talk about anything, or at least that's what I thought.

So here it is, the goodbye I should've given to you, the one you deserved no matter how angry at you I've been, am, or was. Goodbye old friend, it's been amazing. I'll never forget our friendship because it taught me a lot. I won't lie, I'm going to miss you, miss texting/calling you. I'm going to miss our dates that lasted hours, or our bar nights that made up most of my year. Thank you for always listening to me whenever I had a problem, and for always trying to make me see both sides and work through it like a normal person and not the hot head I am. Thank you for always being a phone call away if I ever really needed you. Thank you for standing with me on my wedding day, because despite how we felt...it meant the world to me. You're a great person who deserves every good thing that life gives to you. May you find strength in your darkest times, laughter in the best ones, joy in life all together, love in someone who lifts you up and you do the same for them, i wish you luck in all your current and future struggles, but most of all, I do end this letter with the most sincere wish that maybe one day, we can talk again. If not, at least the wish that you hold our friendship in the same regard that I do.

So until either day comes, I have to leave you behind now.