The truth of the matter is that endings are terrible in the beginning. They tear you to pieces. You cry, eat ice cream, and binge-watch rom-coms on Netflix and start to think you’ll never have that again. Sometimes you want to be alone, resting in the solitude of your gross heartbreak. Sometimes, you don’t. That’s where your friends come in.

To the friends who helped me through my heartbreak: thank you. I’m no longer in pieces, and that is almost entirely because of you.

You watched as I lost myself. I stopped doing the other things I loved when I was naively happy and thought I found “My Person”. I was present in life, but I wasn’t there. I was stuck in my head, stuck in the disbelief of the whole thing. I could see through you that I wasn’t okay for awhile. I saw the concerned looks etched on your faces like an obvious reminder, constantly, that I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry.

Thank you for being the anger in the situation. Thank you for all the times you said “I hate him for what he did to you” because God knows I could never be strong enough to admit that on my own.

Thank you for the times you let me cry to you. That happened more often than I would have liked, admittedly. Looking back on it embarrasses me to no end. But thank you for letting me do it.

Thank you for being there, no matter what. Whether it was 10 AM or 2 AM, you let me vent. You let me think and talk out the situation like it had just happened yesterday. If you were annoyed, you hid it well. I love you. Thank you for that.

Thank you for the nights you made me go out. Thank you for the screaming/singing sessions to Love Yourself and Thnks Fr Th Mmrs in the car like those were the only two songs we knew.

Thank you for making me realize that he wasn’t worth it. Thank you for being honest and telling me when I was acting ridiculous, Thank you for making me snap out of it when I still insisted on bending over backwards when it was all said and done. Thank you for being harsh, for providing tough love, for telling me it was over.

I am so much better now than I was then, and I couldn’t have gotten here without you.

Now that it’s all over and I’m over it, I can look back and realize that you girls were all I needed the whole time.