I saw this post on an awesome blog called Serendipity and Creativity that was a letter to some friends that she has grown apart from and after I read it I felt like it was something I wanted to do too. There are a few people that came to mind while reading hers and I thought I might try it as a way to let go. We have all had best friends, boyfriends, girlfriends or just people that we shared a piece of our lives with that are no longer ones we can count on or feel close and loved by. It's hard when you go about your life day by day and then one day just realize that you don't think of them as often as you used to and that they don't think of you either. It's heartbreaking and something that is never easy.
Dear Someone That I Used To Know,
I miss you so much. I think about you often and I don't understand how this happened. I imagined you to be in my life forever and never saw the day coming that you wouldn't be. I respect you so much and respect your thoughts and see so much light in you. Even still. I don't think you realized how much I valued you and our friendship. I would have done anything for you, you only need ask.
It is difficult to explain the amount you meant to me. I depended on you for the support and love that I would have given you as well. But it seems to me I was mistaken at the level of which you valued me. I feel a fool that I would ever put that much trust into a person because it is an easy way to break yourself. I am broken. You have hurt me in a way that I don't know can be repaired.
I realize my mistakes as well with you. I could have made more efforts to accept you for who you were and not try to change you into the person I wanted you to be. I see now that I needed to just accept you for you and leave it at that instead of battling with you over who I thought you should be versus who you were. That is a struggle of mine. I think that I see what I perceive to be the best version of someone, and then disappoint myself when they don't live up to my preset standards. I should have learned to accept you for you, not for who I hoped you would become.
It is hard for me, and maybe this is my own one sided mind speaking, but I can't see the point in trying to put new life into the scrap of a friendship that remains because I have felt more pain thinking about you then I want to admit. Maybe I am cowardly, but I know my limits. I wish I could push through that limit and forge ahead to make amends, but I just don't have the ability to. I feel as if I always put the first foot forward and now I am empty. My trust and reliance in you is broken. There is nothing else I can do. My one sided perspective is trying to convince me that I should just let go and forget because it keeps reminding me that if you really cared about me, you would show it. Wouldn't you?
For right now, I am going to leave it be. Sometimes people change, I know I have. And though I guess I wouldn't know, I can guess you probably have too. I wanted to share my exciting parts of life with you, to call you and tell you about everything. I pictured telling new friends about you and how much I would love for them to meet you. How you were a friend that would make me laugh when I was sad and accept me for me. But the only version of you that they hear of is the one that I used to be familiar with because even I don't know the newest model of you. I wish I did but I don't. I want my new friends to love my old friend just as much as I did. But they never will.
It goes both ways though. These recent friends know the newest and shiniest version of who I am but you only know the old one. I wanted you to be the person who knew the outdated me and the current me. I wanted you to know the me who I will become in a year. And the me that will develop ten years after that. But you won't. Even the friends I've just made can see my newest self is tainted by the memory of you and the hurt that comes with remembering our friendship.
They tell me to forget about it and move on because "that's life". I am moving on but every little thing drags me right back to you and what you meant to me. You were my companion and supported me and let me be crazy and myself. You recognized qualities in me that I didn't even notice, and that in turn encouraged me to grow. You were amazing at being understanding when I needed you to and silly when you knew I needed that instead. And you are still wonderful and intelligent and I hope for the best in everything you do. Know that I miss you and haven't forgotten about you. But know that though I miss you, I can't hang on to you and keep ignoring the chasm that has developed between us. I can't hurt myself dwelling over why you don't want me in your life anymore, nor can I dwell on wondering if you ever really wanted my friendship at all. I've started to fear that I was the ignorant and naïve one who assumed we were on the same page with our friendship, and maybe I was. No more can I overanalyze what I must have done wrong to turn you away, because I think I understand my part in our loss of friendship and I am truly sorry. I hope that one day we can forget about this lapse of time where we didn't speak, but until then I will continue to try and move on and not think about the dwelling sadness covered up in the back of my mind trying to escape and flood over me again.
Sincerely,
Your old friend
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