Sincerely, and with Love

Emma Moran

I have always been more hung up over friendship break-ups than romantic ones.

I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because I read too many romance books as a kid, where the couple would break up just as often as they would get together while the main character’s friends stayed by their side through thick and thin. Maybe it's because I didn’t consider that anyone I dated before college would be long-term while I traded ‘Best Friend Forever’ charm bracelets on the playground. Whatever the reason, I’ve always been able to walk off my romantic heartbreaks pretty easily. Friendship break-ups? Those are the ones that hurt like a bitch.

Sure, I've had peaceful friendship break-ups: the ones where you slowly drift away from someone until you only interact by liking their Instagram posts and awkwardly waving at their mother in your hometown’s supermarket. Unfortunately, though, I have a tendency for friendships that blow up in my face. (What can I say? I have a talent for ignoring red flags; they’re my favorite color, after all.) Those are the ones that have stuck with me months or even years later. I sit with the endings, friendship crumbling between my fingertips, wondering how things possibly could have ended the way they did. They haunt me– just a little bit.

With all those little ghosts, I wish I could say I am an expert in getting over friendships; I am definitely not. Every time I lose a friendship I find myself getting lost in my emotions. I stay up crying way too late. I see old photos and get so angry I want to throw my phone across the room. I lose myself in the possibilities of how things could have gone differently. I go days without feeling anything at all and then wake up so overwhelmed that I want to crawl back into bed. It’s hard, it’s awful, and god, it sucks. But I have learned a thing or two to ease the pain, to help myself move forward. The biggest thing I have learned? Never regret loving someone.

Of course, you’re going to regret some things in the aftermath of a ruined friendship. Maybe you’ll regret how the friendship ended, or maybe you regret not confronting a problem earlier. You can have a thousand little regrets about the ending, but I never want you to regret the friendship itself. I find that regretting loving someone puts the blame in the wrong place. Things didn't go wrong because you loved them, after all. If you blame the love for the hurt, it can make you think every friendship will destroy itself in the end. You’ll sit there and think, “Well, if I never get that close to someone again, then I’ll never be that hurt again.” Been there, done that, and I don't recommend it: it never helps. You’ll feel just as awful alone as you did after the friendship ended. 

And, well: you can never unlove someone. One of my favorite quotes is from the novel Nona the Ninth: “You cannot take loved away.” I read it months ago and it still sticks with me, because you can’t! After you end a friendship, you probably don't want any reminders of your ex-friend. You might delete pictures; you might block their number; you might turn the other way if you see them in public. But even if you try to ignore it, you can't make the old love you shared go away.

A few weeks ago, I was scrolling through Instagram and paused on the story of an ex-friend of mine. They were posting about songs they had listened to recently, and one of the songs was from a small artist I love. I sat there, staring at my phone and thinking to myself, “They probably got this from me. We haven't spoken in months. They have deleted every photo of me from their social media but they still haven't killed every remainder of me."

Those traces of love will always exist, no matter how hard you try to erase them. If you try to push them away, they're just going to rear their heads back up and bite you later. So, listen to the song that reminds you of them, or wear the bracelet they got you for your birthday. The reminders will hurt at first, but as with all wounds, they will eventually heal up. But only if you acknowledge it, take what is left behind, and make the most of it. 

Recently I have been trying to approach what has hurt me from a softer angle. I'm used to getting angry and depressed in the aftermath of a friendship, but honestly, I’m tired of that, and I’ve found that it never helps me in the end. Now, I am trying to take the broken bits old friends left behind and create something better out of them. I am not always good at this. Sometimes, I want to scream and cry all over again. But now that I am coming to terms with the fact that I did love each and every one of my ex-friends, I am learning to not regret that. 

I hope you can too, dear reader. I hope you can too.

Edited by Emma Krizmanich and Elisabeth Kay