some last and… well…
Some friendships just aren’t meant to last forever.
Learn this lesson and the rest of your journey to adulthood will be easier: not everyone is meant to stay in your life forever and that’s ok. You’re not going to fall apart and lose your sense of self. You may be sad for a couple days, but I promise that if they were really so toxic that you had to end the friendship then they weren’t that helpful in the first place.
After just recently ending a very toxic friendship, I decided to look back on this semester and realized that I cut a lot of people out of my life, but I also opened up the doors to some amazing friendships with some amazing people.
After I cut someone out of my life, my go-to tactic is to block them on all social media and remove their presence in my life. I’m not doing this to be mean or petty, in fact it’s the exact opposite. They are not in my life for a reason. I don’t need them checking up on me and I know that if they are not blocked then I can stop myself from checking up on them. I’m nosy and I know that checking in on them will just torture me even more and will only impede my healing process. The other person may take offense to this and be really upset, but in the end that just shows more about their character than yours.
I usually just have one big vent session with a good friend who knows I just have to let all my crazy out at once, so I can move past the situation and forget about it. I may say some really offensive things, but this is just the craziness and the anger talking and not truly how I feel. That’s why it’s important that you only vent to a close friend who understands this is purely just a vent session that should not be taken too seriously.
Then it’s time to be a little petty and post a bomb selfie with some caption about how “not everyone you lose is a loss” because, let’s be honest, you still have a little pettiness left that you need to let out.
During your college years your main focus is yourself. You should be doing things every day to help others, but at the end of the day you have to focus on yourself. If the people in your life are simply fillers to waste time with then do you really need them? The people in your life should be helping you grow and if they are tearing you down and hindering your personal growth then it’s time to say goodbye. They may have made a meaningful contribution at one point in your life, but some people are just meant to be there for seasons of your life, contribute, and then leave.
So don’t feel bad. The other person will grow and move past the situation too. You both will be ok and, to be honest, there are some people from high school that I swore would be my bridesmaids, but now I don’t even know if they’ll be invited to the wedding. People will come and go, but you should never lose sight of yourself or sacrifice a part of yourself to keep someone else in your life.
There will also be people that you meet now that will stick around for the rest of your life. These friendships may have their rough spots but in the end it will always be worth it. These friends will listen to your concerns and you’ll work together to fix the problems in your friendship. You’ll both put in the effort and it will show by the strength and radiance of your relationship. There are friends who will come and go, some stay for a moment and then there’s lifelong friends like my girl Lindsey who, for some reason, still hasn’t gotten sick of me after all these years.
Photos by: Emily Kimmich