Sitting here writing this, I can't help but look back at this past year, the year you weren't a part of whatsoever. It was the best year of my life, and I can't help but think it's because I've finally cut you out of my life and let myself breathe without that noose hanging around my neck, getting tighter and tighter each and every single day. Of course, I didn't realize it until I figured out that I was worth more than feeling like that. I didn't realize how you were poisoning me until I was treated the way a human being is supposed to be treated. Like I mattered, like I was loved, and worthy of love.

The polar opposite of how I felt with you at the very end.

I'll admit, we had some good memories, but that's what they'll always be; memories, and not memories I'll look back on fondly. I'm not so naive to believe that the past was beautiful; nostalgia is deceptive. It makes you remember things as better than they really were. I thought I had to stay as your friend even though I felt in my gut we no longer were because I thought everyone else already had their groups of friends, because I was absolutely terrified to think of what would happen if I were to leave and be alone because I was so scared of just being alone against the world, nobody there with me.

Well, I did exactly what I was afraid of: I left, and I'm no longer afraid of being alone.

To be alone meant that I had to stand on my own two feet for really the first time ever. To be alone meant I started listening to me, to what I wanted and what I felt rather than what everyone else was telling me about my own life and what I wanted. In those few weeks, I learned a lot about myself, like I don't mind eating in the dining hall alone when it's my own choice to do so and I don't mind staying in my room watching movies on my laptop on the weekend when I choose to do so. The key here is that it is my choice to do these things on my own, and that makes all the difference in the world. See, there's a quote out there that ends with "even though I like being alone, I don't fancy being lonely" and that is exactly how I feel. It's when I wasn't given a choice that I felt that pain in my chest, the ache of loneliness residing deep in my bones and making it hard to fall asleep at night because my mind was just full of doubts to the kind of person I was. Was I awful to be around? Was that it?

No. It wasn't. And I wish I could scream that at my past self but at least I know it now.

To be alone of my own volition meant I was conquering that fear of being alone because I chose to be on my own and to shape my own future and let me tell you, I wasn't alone for long because some people actually liked and still like my company because believe it or not, I am a valuable friend. You took advantage of that fact and now you've lost me forever and I have absolutely no intention whatsoever of going back.

At the end of our painful friendship, I can't tell you how many times you hurt me without you noticing how I was crying and practically begging for you to stop treating me like I was nothing but the old gum on the bottom of your shoe, like I was just some random person that was burdening you and following you around. My mom even told me that there was something wrong with what I called our "friendship" but I was so used to defending you and your actions that I just didn't listen even though I knew deep in my heart that she was right.

I kept not listening too, that is, until I saw it myself firsthand and started crying my eyes out in a Hannaford's supermarket and had to hide in the ladies' room because my heart had just shattered in my chest, and worst of all? I was used to the feeling. Can you believe that? No, you can't, because I never made you feel that way. You would never know how that felt, to be so vulnerable in a sea of strangers crying my eyes out in the bathroom because my still-beating heart had just been ripped out of my chest with no morphine and no count to three. I was so, so beyond tired of feeling like I wasn't worthy of love, that I was always going to be the last option anyone would take because everyone else bailed, but that was the last straw that made me look at myself in the mirror, red-rimmed eyes and all, and see my worth and the heart of gold that was sick of being taken advantage of, the voice that had for far too long been silenced. That was the very end of that version of me and the birth of the best version of me that the world has ever seen.

Now, I have friends who want to make plans to see me over winter break, who hug me in the hallway when they see me, who send me pictures and tweet things at me because they thought of me, who will celebrate my victories with me and say how proud they are of me. I have friends who will read this article and will immediately text me, sending all their love and tell me how much they love me and how brave it was to post something like this for the entire world to see. Friends who will come to see me when I am crying my eyes out in my room after a hard day and hug me and tell me everything will be okay because that's what friends do. They give and take, and we do the same for them when they need it. Friends know if you're upset based on how you shut your door, by the way you phrase your sentences, by the way your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes or how you word your text messages. In a way, I guess I need to thank you for being a bad friend to me because now I know what a good friend is and I will never, ever let these people who make me so happy go.

As I sit here and write this, I can't help but look back and see how much I've changed, how much happier I've become. I think everyone can see it from the way I smile now and how it reaches my eyes every time, the way I laugh more and look forward to doing more things and how I am always reminded that I now have so many friends supporting me in my endeavors. I don't really want to know how you're doing because you no longer have a welcome part in the life I've created for myself and therefore I really don't want to hear if you're doing well or not. For your sake, I do hope your choices have made you as happy as mine have made me. From the looks of my life right now, it looks like things are only going to continue to get better and better.

Thanks for showing me I am worth more than I ever believed I could be.

As Taylor Swift sings, "gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean".

Sincerely,

The one you lost, and will never get back.