The older you get, the more that you realize that not everyone is here to stay. Most of us start out with so many friendships because we are just learning about friendship. When you are a kid, you see everyone as a good person and that they'll never hurt you. I was that kid that believed it until highschool, unfortunately. I was a hermit as a child, so I thought all of my friends that I made were going to be with me forever until I learned my first lesson. I used to believe that everyone had to like me, so I would change myself or keep my mouth shut about things I didn't believe in. I was a coward thinking my friends would have my back if I did what they said. We live and learn.

As an adult, I thought friendships would mature and it turns out that I was wrong. I lost my best friend for almost two decades during my freshman year of college due to communication issues. Reflecting back, I would give more than I would receive from that friendship. It's funny when life shows you patterns within your timeline and you see things that should have never been a thing. A strong friendship is something that is hard to come by and easy to lose. I would never say that relationships are always going to be 100/100, but if your percentage is higher the majority of the time, its time to look back on it.

It is a blessing to have friendships that have lasted past all of life's trials. One only hears that from the older generation because we haven't gotten to that point yet. People become selfish and are only looking out for themselves. It is good to be able to do that, but that shouldn't be the only thing that matters. There are going to be times in our lives that shit is going to hit the fan and we have to look out for ourselves. Those are the times that we hope that we have support and friendship to bring light into the situation. The people you would do anything for are those who should be seeing you as valued as you see them. Value comes from helping each other, the time you spend with each other and the times where one needs an alpha and beta.

Having toxic friendships are part of growing up. I would hope that you would see through those friendships quickly and get out of them but love can be blinding. Having friendships are a part of life and when you have a friendship that is low maintenance and there is still love them (platonic) those are the most valuable friendships. Checking in with them is always refreshing because you don't sense drama and you pick up from where you left off. I hope everyone gets to experience that in their life because stress can cause heart problems and heart problems are increasing in society as a whole. Lets squash problems of the heart and get our lives decluttered and healthy.