I went to school with the same people almost my entire life. Literally, from Pre-K through senior year of high school (minus 8th grade). I was friends with those people too, and good friends. Well, at least I thought we were. With every friendship and relationship there are ups and downs, and because we came back from the downs, I thought they were going to last. They do say that if a friendship lasts seven years or more, that they will last a lifetime. The problem is, I knew most of these people for more than seven years.

After we graduated high school and went to college, we drifted, which is to be expected. But it seemed that everyone voted me off the island, and never thought that they should have mentioned it. Until winter break that year when they would all hang out and put it up on social media where I could see it. Nice of them, right?

What bothers me is not that they didn’t want to be my friend anymore, but that they just thought that not telling me or giving me explanations would be the best way to do it. It took me the entire break to get them to tell me why. Some said I was racist… which doesn’t make sense because I don’t care what race, color, gender, religion, sexuality, etc. If you’re nice and respectful to me, I will be the same. One said I was a liar… because of something a friends sister accused me of saying that wasn’t true about her relationship (which i think is silly anyways, ending a friendship over a boy).

I learned I don’t need them. They weren’t my real friends and they didn’t really care about me. If they did, they would have been upfront about their true feelings. I found better friends. One’s that were there for me through a lot. They helped me through being cheated on, being sent to the hospital, and even some of my darkest of days. I am still meeting these people, and the only time I think about my old friends is when I’m home… and even then it’s minimal. Even though it still hurts me sometimes, and I do not agree with the way that they decided to go about things. I wish them the best in their lives and if they ever needed anything, I would still be there, cautiously. That is what a real friend does.