Friends come and go all the time, and it’s not easy to say goodbye, but sometimes it’s for the best. Columnist Jess Bourne writes about how she felt moving on from an old best friend.
Friends. A funny thing friends are. A person that has known you at your best but also your worst and still wants to be in your life. A person that probably knows you better than you know yourself. A person who will always be by your side in life.
Well, if that last definition was accurate, I would have a ton of friends. I don’t. I have my small circle and I’m happy. Only having few friends means less money to spend at Christmas, less birthdays to remember and less relationships to maintain. I know, I sound negative, but constantly keeping in touch with so many people must be exhausting.
I’ve made many friends throughout my time at school. Some in infant school, secondary school, post 16 education and now university. But I’m not friends with most of them now. I grew up. They grew up. Interests changed. Life changed. But I don’t regret being friends with them, I loved the times I spent with them.
When I left secondary school, our friendship group split into two. With half of us going to Sixth Form, the other half going to college. I had one best friend at this age, and she was going to college to pursue her dreams.
And I was fine with that.
Well, I wasn’t.
I couldn’t comprehend not seeing her every day. Not laughing at our inside jokes. Not spending time with her. And it was rough for the first few weeks. She would post pictures of her with her new friends, and I have major FOMO. I wanted to be a part of the fun, but I couldn’t.
As time went on, I slowly felt like we were slipping away from each other, but I didn’t want to create tension, so I suppressed this feeling.
And while I did have two other friends with me, I never felt truly connected to them. I felt lost and lonely.
But then I found my best friend. Well, she found me.
It was a random morning in Sixth Form and all of the tables in the room were taken. So, Hannah, a shy introverted girl, asked if she could sit on my table. I let her sit down. I knew her from Health and Social Care but not enough to actually go out of my way to speak to her. She sat down and made small talk. It was awkward. Very awkward. But, eventually, we stopped chit chatting and got on with some work. Well, I was playing Mario Kart – very important for my education.
After that encounter, I would see her in my lessons and we would speak briefly.
Around eight months later, she came and sat next to me again, but this time was different. We talked and talked about everything and nothing. And those feelings of loneliness disappeared. I was attached to her from that day and she hasn’t been able to get rid of me since then.
I felt like she instantly got me. Instantly understood everything about me. And knew me inside and out. We would spend all our free lessons together. We should have been getting work done, but we just sat there having fun. There were many times we got told off by teachers for being too loud.
But despite all of this, moving on from my old friends felt easier after finding new ones. It just felt like another step in life. Even in Sixth Form with my friends, I thought we would be friends for life, but the only person I’ve remained in constant contact with is Hannah. I find it somewhat difficult to keep in touch with friends who I haven’t seen in, what feels like, forever. But I’m still proud of them. Proud of them chasing their dreams, doing what they love. And I’ll be a silent cheerleader watching from afar celebrating their wins.
But moving on from friendships was hard. I was moving on from the people who I had sworn we would be friends forever. I thought they would be the ones that I would turn to when I needed help. The ones that my children would call auntie. I thought we would grow old together. But alas, they’re just distant memories now.