5. Cryyyyyying your eyes out and asking, “Why? WHY? WHY???“
Thoughts that are very likely bombarding your brain at all hours of the day and night during this stage: What’s wrong with me? What did I do? Was it something I said? Where did we go wrong? I asked myself these questions every day for a couple of weeks, mentally cycling through a number of possible answers to them:
- I wasn’t a good enough friend to Claire.
- She’s embarrassed by me.
- There’s something she doesn’t want to share with me, so she’s avoiding me.
- She wants to start a new life and that doesn’t involve me—which is totally fair, I guess.
The thousands of other hypothetical reasons splintered off from those ones, which made me reconsider every single minute I’d ever spent with her, wondering if all along, there had been evidence of the problem that I was too wrapped up in our friends-forever vibes to see. I kept revisiting all my memories of Claire and casting them in a bad light, instead of seeing them as they actually were: good.
7. Cry again. And again. And a little more. WAH.
I used a lot of my crying time to reflect on my life and my individual worth. That made me feel better in the end—it helped me realize that I had other friends who supported me and would always be down to talk to me.
8. Blow your nose and move on.
It may be hard to believe right now, but although your friend may never talk to you again, your life will keep moving forward, and you’ll continue to survive. (Solid proof of this: You already are!) My constant pain about Claire diminished over time. Eventually, it came to a point that when someone or other asked, “What’s with you two?” it took me a moment to remember why they would even ask that in the first place. Where, right after the breakup, my answers to this question were bitter because of course I was still upset about what happened, later on, I was a bit more composed: “It seems like we’ve grown apart, but I’m OK with that.”
Acceptance doesn’t come easy. When my mom periodically brought up Claire, it sent pings of that needling internal pain through me. It was unsettling, but I tried not to confuse those reflexes for weakness when they were just natural, valid sadness. It was hard to see and hear mementos of our abandoned friendship, like silly photos or songs we jammed out to together. With time, I learned to love them on my own. I could still jam without her, and I could certainly still smile at those silly photos without her.
If you’re not quite there yet, hide your ex-BFF from your Facebook feed (if you’re brave, unfriend them altogether) and put away your keepsakes and old photos in a box high up in your closet (or burn them, if you like, although you might regret it when you’re less angry). When you leave behind the pain of your loss, which you will, no matter how long it takes, you’ll replenish what you thought was dead; maybe with another loving friend, a significant other, or maybe even the same best friend you grew apart from in the first place. But, if you remember one thing during the hysterical fugue state of grieving, coping, and moving on, it should be that you start with you, you end with you, and you survive as you. And unlike some friendships, that’s a real forever guarantee.
It will get easier to see your ex-friend around without being overwhelmed with WOE. You’ll find someone else that’ll jam with you in your car in the high school parking lot, and other people will be there to help you to pick up the pieces of a seriously bad day. Maybe later on down the line, you’ll even become friends again (like Claire and I did—years later, I seriously love her, which is something my 13-year-old self could never have imagined saying again). This time, though, you’ll have a better grip on yourself, and you’ll be well-acquainted with what really makes you whole (pssst—it’s you, best friend or no). ♦