Once upon a time, I thought that you were the best thing that could have ever happened to me, but now I know that you were the worst thing that could have happened to me. I still remember the first time we started talking. I still remember those conversations where you would taunt me for liking Justin Bieber, but you did so in a way that made me laugh at myself too. It was pure bliss like nothing bad could ever happen, but even I know that good things must come to an end at some point. It’s moments like that where I wish I could turn back the hands of time, but I can’t, so instead, I have to keep pushing forward despite all of the damage you left behind.

In the beginning, I enjoyed getting to know you and growing with you while you got to know me, but then things began to change. I began to see a side of you that I never wish I saw. The sweet, caring, funny disposition that you had before was no longer there. In its place was a dark, cold, bitter person. All of our beautiful conversations replaced with less-than subtle insults and putdowns. I’ll never understand why you made the girl who truly cared for you the target of your abuse. You may not have physically hurt me, but what you did was worse. You made me feel so insecure and weak, like I was worthless. You tried to take away my voice, and you almost did before I realized that I deserved better than you. I deserve better than all the lies you placed inside of my head, lies telling me that I’m not good enough and that no one would truly love me like you did. As I replay all of these conversations in my head, a part of me wonders why I gave you so many chances to continue hurting me? Why did I allow myself to be a victim of your emotional manipulation? I allowed myself to believe that you would change because you loved me, but now I realize that what you did was not love. Love is not breaking a person to his or her breaking point or emotionally hurting them, but love is speaking words of encouragement when they are having a bad day or saying all the right things because they need to hear it.

The hardest part of not talking to you anymore is that you’ll never know how much you hurt me, but the worst part is that you’ll never admit the error of your ways. You’ll never understand how powerful the sting of your words were. You’ll never understand how much you broke my spirt with your constant lies and deceptions. For months, I would cry myself to sleep thinking of all the reasons I upset you, thinking of all the ways that I could make you happy, but the more that I tried, the more you found reason to blame me. You tried to steal my joy to make yourself feel better, but you failed because you cannot take away the joy that God has given me.

Through all of that, I can finally say that I no longer blame you. I am no longer resentful towards the way you treated me, but I am grateful for it because you have taught me that sometimes holding on to something that isn’t meant to be does more harm than letting go. If I continued to hold onto this toxic friendship and resent you, I never would have appreciated the beautiful friends that I have now. I never would have moved forward with my life if it wasn’t for you. Thank you for teaching me that I deserve better than you. Thank you for helping me to discover that I am stronger than what you put me through. Thank you for teaching me the value of letting go. Thank you for letting me find the good in “goodbye”, so I wish you a long and happy life.