Hello, it’s me.

It’s been awhile since we’ve stopped talking. I’d be lying if I said that I don’t think about how you’re doing every once in awhile. I mean, at one point, we were so close, so inseparable, how could I not wonder about you every now and again? After all this time, I can sincerely say that I hope you’re doing well because I’m doing just fine.

Since we’ve stopped communicating, I’ve exhausted the replay button whenever Taylor Swift’s “Bad Blood” came on, I’ve exhausted every word to describe how hurt I am that you walked away, and I’ve exhausted my supply of tears wondering how the hell things could hit the fan so hard and so suddenly the way they did. I’m exhausted.

It took me awhile to piece together exactly why I was feeling hurt. Then I realized I was hurt not because you walked away so suddenly, but because neither of us were willing to work out our issues enough to not walk away. It’s not the hate and the spite that hurt – it’s the apathy and indifference not just on your part, but on mine as well.

No matter how much I have wanted to forget our friendship ever happened, I can’t deny what we had and I can’t rewrite history. Now that I can look back with little to no resentment, I realize that in retrospect, what we had was good. At the beginning of the end, when the pain was still very real and still very fresh, I started noticing little things about myself – how I acted, how I spoke – reminded me of you. I started to make a mental list of these things, and tried to Ctrl-Z my way to who I was before we met, and reinvent myself into a person who had never known you. But the truth is that there is no denying who I am now, whether or not we were ever friends. You, just like everyone else I’ve ever crossed paths with, have left a permanent impression on me. Whether we like it or not, we carry a piece of each other everywhere we go, and how we choose to deal with that reality is our own prerogative.

I believe that every single person we encounter has a purpose in our lives, and as they come and go, chapters end and chapters begin. Your chapter just so happened to end in my story, and mine in yours. Those chapters are written in ink, and no matter how much we try to white-out those stories and adventures, and pretend like they never happened, they’re still there beneath the surface, as much as we try to act like they’re not.

So here I am on the other side of that snafu that was the demise of our friendship, saying with a whole heart that I hope you’re doing okay. I hope you have someone else in your life who’s willing to listen to your problems, throw subtle shade at your enemies, and have deep chats about life with. We may not be in each other’s lives anymore, but I want to thank you for coming along for the ride for as long as you did.

See you on the other side.