To the Friends I Lost Along the Way,

Thank you.

Thank you for once being a part of my life and meaning the world to me. For that service I will always be thankful. I look back at our time as friends and cherish every moment that you made me happy, every time you made me laugh, and even more so to the times you made me cry. Each and every one of you played a role in creating the person that I am today, and for that I am thankful. Whether we were friends for a long period of time or a short one, it doesn't really matter, to me you were still a friend and I am thankful for that.

However, there are also a few things I'd like to bring up. A few of you, and I'm sure if you read this you'll know who you are, I'm not entirely sure what happened. You see, to me, it seems like I lost you because I wasn't capable of being the happy, weird person that I had been known to be before that point. At the time, losing you as friends tore me up way more than what I was going through at that time. You preach one thing, build a nonprofit organization to try to raise awareness for it, and yet when one of your best friends since elementary school goes through that exact problem, you abandon them and leave them to figure it out on their own. To you, I wanted to address you personally and thank you for teaching me that not everyone is who they say they are. Even the people who were your best friends for years, and the people who claimed they'd always be there for you, can change in the blink of an eye and actually turn out to leave you behind. Thank you for teaching me to never completely trust people, because you never know what might cause them to change their minds and betray every bit of trust you gave them.

To those of you who taught me other valuable lessons, I'm thankful for those lessons too. Whether that is trust, or proof that not everyone is the who they say they are, thank you. Without each and everyone of you, I would not be the person that I am and I would not be as strong as I am today.

Those of you that we simply grew apart due to distance, or lack of communication, I'm sorry. I miss you and wish you would come back into my life.

And lastly to those of you who made an effort to come back, it is you who I am truly thankful for. Thank you for reminding me why we were friends in the first place and for always staying by my side when I need you the most. Yes, we may not be as close as we once were but I appreciate you coming back and returning to my life and being my friends.