Anyone who knows me knows that my friends are my soulmates. My relationships with my friends act as a mirror of who I am. They ground me, they inspire me and they are so central to who I am. I didn’t grow up with a big extended family, so I sought deep kinship in my friendships. I was no different in high school. Many of my most cherished relationships have endured from high school— like one of my best friends whom I met in grade 8.
Despite having different friend groups, our relationship was steady over the years. There was always a sense of comfort and security that I found in our relationship. But, as we approached graduation I felt like our dynamic had shifted. We didn’t see each other and I didn’t feel like I was a priority in her life anymore.
High school is hard. No one really teaches you how to maintain friendships. I wasn’t taught how to set boundaries. I knew nothing of love languages or what I was entitled to in a healthy, reciprocal relationship. I sure as hell did not know how to express myself when my needs weren’t being met. So instead of having an open conversation with my friend about how I was feeling, I decided to hold a fierce grudge. I let the hurt fester and grow until it was all I could feel.
After months of silence, I unleashed all my pain, hurt, and anger and my friend was shocked, unaware of the emotions I had been sitting on for all these months. In hindsight, it was an unfair position to put her in. Nothing she said could have made me feel better or more secure in our relationship. I was seeing red. That fight triggered an 11-month period of estrangement between my best friend and me.
I must have been 17 when this first true best friend breakup happened. It was epic and tragic all at once. A real-life parting of best friend souls.
In these months of not talking, my anger cooled. I recognized that my feelings were valid, and also that I was wrong for thinking other people could read my mind. It is my responsibility, and mine alone, to express myself when I’m not getting what I need in a relationship. It’s something I admittedly still struggle immensely with to this day. After all this reflection, I was left only with the desire to understand what went wrong. A lot had changed in the time we were apart but I knew I cared deeply for my friend and hoped with an open conversation we could move forward.
We eventually decided to meet at a coffee shop to talk things through. I remember hyping myself up in the parking lot, unsure of what was to follow.
Years later, the details of the conversation are fuzzy. There are a few things, however, I will never forget.
I won’t forget how we both entered that conversation with a sincere desire to see the other person’s point of view. As it turns out, there was much more going on in my friend’s life than I had anticipated. I realized that while fixating on how my own needs weren’t being met, I failed to check in on her. We were young and didn’t know how to express that we needed support and love. Instead, we both turned into ourselves and nearly destroyed a lifelong friendship in the process.
We acknowledged the difficulty of being apart for so long, and we were committed to finding a way through. We listened to truly understand how the other person was feeling. We learned that our destructive behaviors were coming from our own places of hurt, rather than a lack of care for each other.
It’s funny to think about two 17-yea- old girls crying at a Starbucks in Surrey because of how much they care for each other, but I promise you that’s exactly how it happened.
We made a promise that day to be transparent with our emotions and to make a concerted effort to prevent our grievances from festering before addressing them with the other person. We expressed our desire to make the other feel cared for and loved. It was so important to us to prioritize our relationship while honoring our own capacities. We wanted to go through every stage of life together and recognize that it would take patience and flexibility to make that a reality.
In hindsight, it was liberating and a definite point of growth in my life.
Over the years, I’m sure little things have come up. But that grand best friend breakup reminds us that we can solve anything together if we just communicate with kindness and care. That we have the humility to see our friends for who they are in that moment. As messy and flawed human beings who are doing their best and will inevitably trip up. To learn to love them and ourselves through all the learning. That’s friendship to me.
