A Letter to All the Friends I've Lost

It’s late at night. Or maybe it’s early morning. 3 am or 5 am – I can’t tell anymore.

I'm coming under fire.

Maybe not directly, maybe not all at once, but in small, sharp ways. From life, from people, from myself. And if you’re one of those friends reading this – don’t click away. This isn’t a sob story. This isn’t me asking for pity.

This is a letter. An awkward, messy letter.

I hate it when people tell me I need to change. It sucks.

It punches me in the gut and leaves me spiralling for hours. I'm not proud of that.

I wish I was someone who could just nod and smile and take it like a lesson, but usually it wrecks my mood for the day.

And sometimes, I know I was the one who wrecked things too.

I said the wrong thing. I disappeared when you sent me a text.

Sometimes I hurt people without even knowing it, because my own fears – trust issues, doubts, insecurities – got louder than the actual situation.

It’s not an excuse. It’s just what happened.

I’m such a mental person.

Always stuck in my own head. Always second-guessing myself.

Sometimes you said things to help me – to help me – and all I could hear was criticism.

I carried it around like a stone in my pocket, heavy and inescapable. Even when you were right. Especially when you were right.

To my friends from school – I miss you.

I missed your wedding, your get-togethers.

I missed laughing in hallways and feeling like I belonged somewhere.

It’s not that I didn’t want to show up.

It’s that I didn’t know how to, anymore.

Big gatherings made me sad. They still do.

Maybe it’s because I always feel like I have nothing to show. No impressive career. No perfect relationship. No glowing updates to make you proud of me.

To the friends I drifted from…

Some of you, I miss deeply. Some of you, I don’t miss at all. That’s the truth.

And for those of you I miss – really miss –

Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere. In a song, a memory, a photo I forgot I had.

It’s not a loud kind of missing.

It sits with me when I’m walking alone outside, or when I wake up too early and everything is still.

I wish I could tell you that.

I wish I could say I’m sorry for the gaps that grew between us, even when I didn’t want them to.

Some friendships deserve a second chance. Some don’t.

But the missing – that’s real. It always will be.

Sometimes we spent time together and I felt bored and disconnected, like I was putting on someone else’s shoes.

Spending money on things that didn’t excite me. Laughing at jokes that didn’t feel real.

I don’t know if it was the place, the timing, the version of myself I was stuck in – but somewhere along the line, I realised we didn’t have much in common anymore.

And I left. I didn’t know how to stay without losing myself even more.

And sometimes... sometimes it wasn’t about boredom.

Sometimes it was about toxicity.

Sometimes I walked away because I felt small, unseen, or exhausted just being there.

But even now, I wonder – should I have stayed?

Should I have accepted the flaws, the messiness of it all?

After all, I’m full of flaws too.

I’m not proud of the way I am sometimes. I don’t have it figured out. Not even close.

Sometimes I ignored your messages because I felt so heavy inside, I didn’t want to burden you.

Sometimes I secretly wished you would message again anyway. Because deep down, I was lonely. I just didn’t know how to say it.

And sometimes, when you criticised me, when you told me hard things, you trusted me enough to be honest.

That trust meant more than I realised at the time. Even when it stung.

I think about how we all meet a fork in the road.

Do we keep living the way we always have, or do we change?

And most of the time, if I’m honest, I chose the easy way out.

Stayed the same.

Kept the same flaws because fixing them felt like climbing Everest (and even though I say I'm climbing hills, I'm doing it with such loud breathing it could be mistaken for a cry for help).

But I’m trying. I really am.

I want to be better.

Not perfect – just better.

I’m not writing this to make excuses. I’m writing this because I want you to know.

Even if we never speak again, even if we stay strangers now…

I’m grateful for the time we shared.

I’m sorry for the ways I failed you.

I hope your life has been kind to you.

And wherever you are – whether you're happy, struggling, or somewhere in between – I’m cheering for you, quietly, from afar.

Love,

Joanne