Friends are not forever, and that is OK

A farewell letter to the friendships I am letting go...

We are not friends any more, and that is OK. In our lifetime, we will experience many friendships. Some will only last a couple of years, and that is more than OK. I want you to know, I am glad I got to know you, I appreciated you and I hope our friendship also brought you joy, comfort and everything in-between.

Credit: collage by me

I love my friends deeply. So much so, the word ‘friend’ holds a lot of weight. Not every one is my friend. I made peace in my mid-twenties that friendships will come and go. It is not always a bad thing when they go. We grow apart, we yearn for different things, we fall out. After all, life shapes us differently, we are on different frequencies and that is OK.

Dear former friend,

You have slipped into the status of an acquaintance. You are someone I used to know and will have in my repertoire. This does not mean that I am crossing you off completely, you are just someone I don’t see myself building community with right now. This might sound harsh to read, but life is shaping me in a way where I long for a sense of community you are not willing or ready to adhere to, and that is OK. That friendship breakup was bound to happen anyway.

See, the past few months, my beliefs and desires have sharpened. You have heard me complain about the state of the world many times. You know my feelings towards this unjust society. I always felt like I was the friend that made you feel better about not having a very diverse entourage. It always made me uncomfortable to be the token friend, and I hate it that I did not know how to convey it properly. In hindsight, my discomfort with that situation made me distance myself from you. It was the healthier and wiser option.

I have questioned our friendship a lot lately. I felt selfish and bad for wanting to let it go. You have opened your arms to me many times, and it meant the world to me. But let’s be honest, we have lost the spark of our friendship. We are not in tunes any more, and that is OK. Sparks rarely last forever. They demand to be rigorously maintained, and we did not feel the urge to keep the flames going, we knew the breakup was bound to happen.

Friendship breakups are hard, losing a friend you used to be closed to is painful. But like I said, some friendships only last a couple of years, and that is more than OK. You brought me an understanding I would have not been able to acquire would I have not met you. Our friendship was successful and fruitful, it was just not meant to be lasting forever, and I made peace with that. Some people come to your life to plant new seeds, water them with their presence and when you have grown enough from that experience, they leave. That is what our friendship felt like. I hope the seeds I planted in you, have made you grow, and you will keep sowing them onto other people because sharing is caring.

I am not writing you off, I can’t write you off. I got to know you, and I am grateful for that. We have grown apart, we are yearning for different things. You know I am all about community, I hope you get to bring your community to overcome your discomfort and push for system change benefitting all of us wherever we are from. I know my friends and I are moving that way, because we have no other choice. I am sorry to let you go. I am sorry for I am not willing to maintain that spark. Many sparks have come and gone, and I want to nurture the sparks that are burning as strong as mine, I know you have sparks that are better suited with yours and I want for you to care for them, they are precious and this is how you build community. I wish for us to bring our sparks together again. In our lifetime, hopefully.

Love always

Ruth Noemi