I'm very picky about the people that I choose to be my friends. I'm not the type to click with a person immediately after I start to talk to them or to become friends with anyone and everyone that I meet like some other extroverts who I know do. I choose my friends slowly and carefully. I have to be sure that they're the right person as I believe that the friends you spend time with have a huge influence on your life and on you as a person.

But when I do decide that I want to let someone be my friend, I pour my heart and soul into the friendship. I'm a person who gives and needs a lot of love, so I treat my friends well and get attached to them and to every good memory we share.

And while it can be a good thing to take the leap and pour all of yourself into another person, when that person leaves, it hurts and leaves you almost as sad as you used to be happy when you were with them. I've moved twice in my life, once to another state entirely and another time to a different city and school. Both times, I've had friends who stayed friends despite the distance, but I've also had friendships that have just faded over time. As grateful and appreciative I am of the people who continued to put effort staying friends with me, I can't help but feel hurt over the people who let our relationship waste away.

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Over the years, I've started to notice when people don't care as much as I do about our relationship. I've started to notice when people ignore my texts or put off the chore of video calling me or when the everyday conversations of talking about our days started to become the bland "How are you?" and "I'm good."

The worst part is, I would blame myself for it.

Was I not being a good friend? Was I not putting in enough effort? Similar thoughts would bother me every time I checked my messages and saw my friend hadn't responded or had just sent an "OK." But it took me two years to realize that I was powerless to the friendships that ended like this or to those that didn't even make it this far. It wasn't my fault.

It really could've been that they were too busy or had other things keeping their mind occupied. It could've just been the distance or the absence of constantly seeing each other at school that had made them lose interest in the friendship. Or maybe it really was that the other person never really liked me, but whether or not that was true, there was nothing I could do to change the fact, so I should just learn to accept it and move on.

One of the main things that made me upset about losing my friends was I always wondered how happy I could've been if I had never left, if I ended up staying friends with those people. I'd often look through pictures we took together, cards we wrote to each other, shuffled through memories in my mind that we made together, and it only made me feel worse.

I've learned that in this case, as in many others, you shouldn't dwell on the past.

There comes no good from "what if's" or thinking about the past and what could have been. It probably doesn't occur to you that there's a chance that things wouldn't have stayed the same, anyways. Who knows, maybe the two of you may have fallen out of your friendship even if you never left.

Point being, losing friends is never easy. Like many other things, getting over it won't be easy. You may feel inclined to wish for the good times back or to blame yourself for things going wrong, but it's okay. You've done all you could, and if fate has it that the two of you weren't meant to be friends, accept it. This is what I learned after struggling for a while, and it's what I wish I had been told earlier. Don't dwell over what could have been and instead live in the present. But most importantly, don't hold yourself back.

Don't be afraid of getting attached to another friend out of fear of the pain that the tearing of your bond may cause. Live freely. Give all of yourself to your friend. With strength and courage, don't hold yourself back and just go for it; let yourself be completely happy. While you may have gotten hurt over losing friends in the past, who knows? Maybe you had to go through that pain just to find someone else who you love even more and who loves you just as much.