More than once in my life I have known that I cared more about a friendship than the other person did. Usually, I pretended not to care because I just wanted to spend time with them every now and then, even if I wasn't as important to them as I wished I was. I accepted any and all of their apologies so I didn't have to start over, and watched them turn their back on me time and time again. I did this for most of my life until recently when I looked up from one of the lowest points of my life, and there was the friend that had let me go for no reason other than that I had made huge changes in my life that they weren't able to understand. At one time, I had wanted nothing more for them to come back into my life, but as I looked at the person in front of me, I did what I had never had the strength to do until then: I let them go.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that there are people who come into your life for reasons other than to lift you up and support you, and instead come in as a toxic force both emotionally and physically. Unfortunately, these people aren't always easy to pick out of a crowd. They are people who come into your life as friends, but eventually see that you have grown and made positive changes that they haven't, so they push for you to fail so that you are forced back down to their level. We've all had to let go of toxic forces in our lives, but at the end of every one of these relationships, I am always left with the same question:

This person had already let me go, so why is it so hard for me to do the same?

In the end, we would both go our separate ways, but they were a significant part of my life for a long time. I know that they actually wanted me to be as happy as I wanted them to be. What do you do when you spend all of your free time with someone and then suddenly they aren't there for you anymore? You're hurt, you're angry, and you miss them, but then you keep going. Change sucks, but it's one of the only necessary things that we do.

So that's exactly what I did. I changed, and I grew up, and I learned that I have no reason to be bitter. In the end, we weren't what the other one needed, but I don't regret the time I spent with them, or the love that I gave them along the way. I still feel a twinge of sadness when I see them; like I just want to go ask them about their day and tell them the dumb joke I heard that morning and say that I miss them, but I don't. I let them go, just like they did to me. As hard as it has been to move away from that chapter of my life, I learned something about myself and about life in general along the way.

In the end, the power to let go is one of the best things we have.