Break-ups are tough, there’s no denying that. But friendship break-ups are especially painful, and harder to get over.
One day you have these amazing people in your life who make you so happy and you go through everything in life with them right by your side, until one day, they decide you are no longer good enough and leave with no explanation and no goodbye.
It is especially difficult when those people were some of your closest friends who you believed would be in your life forever.
But life doesn’t work that way.
I had an amazing group of women in my life for many years, who were a huge part of my life and identity.
We were a small circle of really close friends and those girls were everything to me.
They were supposed to be my bridesmaids one day and our kids would be the best of friends.
I truly thought they would be in my life forever as it was impossible to imagine it otherwise.
Today, I am no longer a part of their lives, and it has been that way for around two years.
It has taken me a LOT of time to accept that and learn to live with that, knowing that I had no say in the matter.
I never got my answers. I never got to ask the girl I was closest to: Why? What changed?
We were best friends in the world and now you are acting as if our friendship never happened!
By default, all the other girls followed her, and I was out. Honestly, to this day I have no idea what happened. It was like a (bad) dream.
When I started feeling something was wrong and that they were icing me out, I tried reaching out.
I asked all the questions one would ask in that situation. I got no answers. And that was my answer.
That was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. Losing my girls, without so much as a goodbye.
The most painful thing is that they all still live in our hometown. I still see them from time to time. Only now we are strangers.
For a while, I kept thinking it was my fault. I must have done something wrong! There had to be an explanation, they would never just leave me like that!
But they did, and all I could do was learn to accept it and stop wondering why. After all, I reached out, I begged them to talk to me, to tell me what was going on, but to no avail.
I was so sad and mad all at the same time. I suddenly had to learn how to live without my girls. I had to stop thinking about our memories and all the times we were there for each other through thick and thin.
I had to learn to let go of these friendships as if they never existed.
And let me tell you, it was brutal, but I learned to let go. It took me over a year to fully heal, but it IS possible.
What I found to be most helpful when going through something like that, is to surround yourself with good people!
Be that your sister, cousin, other friends or your mom! Do not let yourself dwell in misery!
Do not lock yourself in your room and live in your thoughts, it will eat you alive!
It is hard, but go out, socialize, try to forget, even for a few hours and suddenly you will realize that you CAN survive this, and there are still good people in your life!
It will not happen overnight, but one day it will just get easier and you will realize that, as hard as it may sound, THEY have moved on without you, and so can you!
And one day, you will just learn to let go, forgive and move on with no resentment.
Today, I can proudly say, as hard as it may have been, I have learned to live without them. I no longer wonder why.
All I know is I did my best to salvage those friendships, and it simply did not work. And that is OK.
Not everyone is supposed to stay in our lives.
I learned to appreciate the memories, and continue with my life, with the amazing people that I have left.
Sometimes that is all you can do, and that is all right.
You are enough, and the RIGHT people will know how to appreciate you.
You just have to go through some heartbreak first. But it DOES go away, and things do get better.
You are stronger than you think, and things will work out in the end. Love yourself, put yourself first and the right people will come (and stay).
