A Letter to My Ex Close Friends

From Childhood Best Friends And To Those I Have Now

I still love you. I still love all of you the way I always have. I may not speak to you all but let us all face it, we are all adults with busy busy lives. We all have things to worry about where before our priorities were not that straight and we all did goofy things. We put our friends first sometimes back in the day. We all then realized that we have to be serious and get our own shit together first and we slowly stopped those late night talks and brunches. We soon went from weekly friend dates to an occasional “How are you?” from time to time. We might even go past that and give each other “like” here or there on our occasional social media post, but we both know we are still there. We are still thinking about one another.

I know we all drifted apart and maybe it was for the best. You met new people, new shoulders to cry on, and maybe found love along the way. Things happened for a reason. We all influenced each other in some way or another. I have experienced some great things with all of you. I have seen all of you grow and I am proud of all of you. I have known all of you to suffer some sort of life crisis and you all carried on and are living and becoming amazing adults.

We became different, but for some reason, a spark of the old us comes out when we cross paths. The old laughs and the old jokes resurface and I cannot express how wonderful that feels. We never forgot our younger self chit-chats. We did not forget the silly humor we had and we did not forget those late night talks.

I would be lying if I said I do not miss you. I miss you. I miss the things we did because it was our thing.  I miss those days where I could just call you without it being awkward. I wish I could go back in time and hang out with each one of you one last time before we changed so I could really soak in the last time. I wish I knew it was our last time spending time with each other. I would have done it all different. I would have taken more pictures and I would have made it more memorable than how we left things. But the sad truth of it is…I can’t and I am sure it all turned out for the best. We left on either good terms or bad terms which helped our future selves in some way. I know because of a few friendships that I had. I know I have learned from it in some way. I have learned to love myself a little more, to be on time, to live a little, fries do taste good in Foster Freeze Ice Cream, how to bowl, good books to read etc.

And I want to say thank you for influencing me to be the wacky person I am today.

I do not know about you but I still think about our memories. I still think about those times where we swang on the swing so high that we thought we would swing all the way around the pole. I remember the days we had 25 cent popsicles for lunch on Fridays and we sat under that tree and talked about what one was better. I still remember the days we rode bikes down the road and we had competitions who could ride faster. I still remember the time we played mud fight in my parent’s yard and they chewed us out but we had the best time anyway. The almost sleepovers where my mom changed her mind at the last minute and made me come home wishing I stayed and told scary stories under the covers. I still remember the time where we went to each other’s houses for dinner and awkwardly talking to your parents and laughing how stupid I acted because I am a social wreck. I will remember the rare occasion when I had money to go out with all of you to the local pizza place and we ordered a lot of pizzas because we could and made a whole day out of it. I remember when you all spotted me that dollar for the ice cream man (you are all still the realest ❤ ). I remember the times we played some weird games growing up, one where we pretended we had superpowers. I remember the times we went to McDonald’s and we went down the slides and we were kicked out because we did not listen to the rules. The taco runs. The days we got each other drunk. I remember so many memories.

They all have a special place in my heart believe it or not.

I have been close to different people at different times of my life. Some friends know me as the daredevil with a hint of innocents, the worried friend, and the one who influenced you to do some stupid crap. I have different phases and I bet all of you do too. We might forget who we were on regular days until we catch a glimpse of the past. When I see pictures of our silly faces and I feel the old person in the photo resurface for a split second.

They were all good memories.

I wonder if any of you think of me. I wonder what makes you think of me. Hopefully good things! Ha! But in all sincerity, I hope you are all doing well and you all have the best. All my friends and family deserve the best. And we may not talk anymore but I still want you to know one thing.

You will always have a friend in me.