If you're lucky, you'll never have to do it. It's heart wrenching. It hurts like nothing else in the world. It doesn't matter how toxic they may have been, or what they said of did. There's always an empty feeling afterwards. Like there's something missing, or like things are out of order. Everything is seven inches to the left. No matter how bad it hurts, though, sometimes letting go of people is a necessary thing, even if that person was your best friend of eight years.

See, here's the thing I learned from letting her go. Here's what she taught me that I'm most grateful for. Friendship is not manipulation. Friendship isn't expecting the world from somebody and accusing them of being a bad person the second they can't give you everything they want. Friendship is not keeping people around for convenience. Friendship isn't people bending over backwards for you, and you not even turning your head for them. Friendship is not being cruel and unkind when someone takes a step back for themselves for their mental health. Friendship is not twisting words and incidents into messages that were never even there in order to get their way and manipulate you into feeling like the bad guy. It's not being jealous when your friend hangs out with anybody that isn't you.

Friendship is pure. Friendship is kindness. Friendship is looking at someone and feeling like they're right where they belong. Friendship is beautiful. Friendship is difficult. Friendship is solid unless the other person is acidic. Friendship understands. Friendship is patient. Friendship is earned, not deserved. Friendship is fleeting if it isn't deserved, and people often choose their friends on what they think they're worth.

Life is too short to hold on to people who burn your hands and scorch your heart. Life is too meaningful to let failed friendships pin you down like a paperweight on an overdue assignment. This is your life. You are in control of the people who are in and out of it. Don't keep negative people in your life, ever. It doesn't matter if it's been eight years or eight months. It doesn't matter if they threaten to kill themselves if you leave, or if they harass you for choosing to do what's best for you. You are not a bad person for doing what's best for you, even if it hurts somebody else. Hurting people in this life is inevitable. Aren't you tired of being the one constantly hurt? Don't you matter? Are you not the writer and protagonist of your own story?

I let go of one of my best friends this week. She was a grenade. I stopped time for her and when I left, she let go. Now there's only ash left, and I'm not picking it up. Explosives aren't safe, so don't keep human time bombs in your life.