Dear Former Friend,

Yes, I know there are a lot of articles circulating through the internet with the topic of writing to a former friend, saying how much the friendship is missed and how they wish they could go back and fix it, but this one is different. I don't miss our friendship, not at all.

In all honesty, when we first stopped being friends I was upset and hurt. It's not like our friendship ended on good terms—I can pinpoint the moment it ended—but I still don't truly understand what happened to make our blowout occur.

By no means is this a letter written in hopes that you will read this and text me wanting to be friends again and it's not a message in hopes of closure, it's more of a text written to let you know that I'm over it and doing fine without you.

I guess some thank you's are in order, considering that I will never get the chance to tell you in person.

First off, thank you for our short "friendship." Even though looking back it's obvious that we were never truly friends, thank you for all the memories that we made. Thank you for the cute pictures that we took for Instagram likes and for the adventures that we went on before everything changed. Even though we are longer friends, at the time it was fun hanging out, so thanks for the memories, even if they are now tainted with bad images.

Second, thank you for teaching me what a real friend is. After we stopped being friends, I reflected on our time and realized that I made a lot of poor decisions during our "friendship." I turned into a person that I hated because I chose to act a certain way to fit into what I thought was an amazing friendship. I began to talk about people and become exclusive, maybe that's why I shouldn't have been so surprised when I discovered you talked behind my back most of our friendship. Our friendship was toxic, making me miserable more times than happy. So thank you for deciding that we weren't friends anymore, it helped me to become my happy self again instead of the depressed stranger that I was starting to become. It also showed me the type of people I want/need to surround myself with. The end of our friendship helped me to start new, better, more positive friendships that are much better suited for my life. You helped me to see that the people who I surround myself with will greatly affect me, so thank you for showing me that I needed a change of scenery, even if you didn't realize you were helping.

Finally, thank you for never apologizing for the way our "friendship" ended. Maybe it's because you don't think you did anything wrong or maybe it's because you don't care enough, but thank you for never saying sorry. By never receiving an apology, I learned to accept the fact that some people will just never give you what you want and that I would have to live with the fact that I would never know what I did that horrible for our friendship to end the way it did. I learned that in life we can't always get what we want and that sometimes we would have to forgive without actually hearing the words "I'm sorry."

Before I say goodbye forever, I just want you to know that I do forgive you, even if you don't care or think that you don't need forgiveness. I also want to say sorry for anything that I did that hurt you. I hope you have a great life, I truly do. I wish you all the best, but unlike all these other 'former friend letters', I don't hope that our paths ever cross. I do not want to be friends with you again, as a matter of fact, I can't be friends with you again. I've become very good at forgiving, but I never forget and if I've learned one thing from our "friendship," it's that people never change, they just reveal their true colors and that is a lesson I will never forget.

So, thanks once more for the memories and for teaching me a lot about myself. The end of our friendship caused me to realized a lot about who I am as a person and who I want to become. Thank you for deciding not to be my friend anymore, it was really a blessing in disguise.