By the time you make your exit from high school, you likely lost a number of friends. Whether it was due to a choice or not, through conflict or life, most friendships in your lifetime don’t last. This is why we cling so very hard to the ones we think will stay with us and be lifelong friends.

This is why we dub some people our “best friends” in hopes of solidifying the friendship with some sort of unwritten oath—and why we have an actual contract with a significant other to keep them around, bound by declarations of love in front of others and recognized by law.

Long story short, relationships are pretty damn important to us.

Humans, since the dawn of time, have clung to each other. Back in prehistoric/caveman(or woman) times, friendship was more for survival, and less harmonious as it is today. We’ve even come to the point where we domesticated animals and also dubbed them our friends.

Where do our friends usually come from? While most of our early friends came from grade school, we find that friends can come from anywhere—though it isn’t as easy for some as it is for others.

We seek friendship for probably a thousand reasons. We’re lonely. We can’t go through life without help. We need something from people to excel. We need to eventually mate.

What happens though, when we lose a friend?

I could go through research and brain scans that suggest the loss of a friend can, in some instances, cause trauma of the psyche. That losing a friend is synonymous to the death of a loved one and that not talking to a friend can cause chemical imbalances, insomnia and other physical, and very real, consequences.

But why is it that we become so distressed when we lose a friend? It seems similar to a break-up. Perhaps the stakes are even higher because the investment was larger.

For someone you date, you understand that a breakup is possible, and, in fact, most romantic relationships end. But you never think that a friendship with someone that “so gets you” would end. You can’t even conceive why that would happen. But it has. And it sucks.

But there’s something you should know.

Some friendships aren’t meant to last. Things become toxic, you grow apart as people and put more bluntly, you’re not right for each other.

You were different so many years ago. So were they. To expect two people to be best friends their entire lives, their entire existence is foolish and crazy. To cling onto someone as if they’re some type of security blanket is not healthy. To elevate someone to a godlike status, the epitome of greatness is a fallacy of friendship.

I want you to know that it’s okay that we aren’t friends anymore.

We had a good run. We had fun and I remember the times that I laughed so much it hurt, I remember us buying fancy mugs and making hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies together, I remember how excited I was when you became my first friend in college and most importantly, I remember the moment in a drunken stupor that I realized that our friendship had been terminated by things I said, or perhaps the realization I had when I last saw you: that time had changed both of us.

I recognize, now, that while going to school and working and having lives, we changed into different people. I realize that our friendship will never be the way it was when we first met. And I’m okay with that—now.

And maybe we’ll only have our memories.

And maybe that’s okay.

For what it's worth, you did help me grow into the shoes of the person I’m happy to say I am. And I hope that, even if it’s very insignificant, that I helped change you too.

When your name comes up in conversation, or when I see you across campus or at a coffee shop, I don’t avoid you or mutter expletives under my breath—anymore. But I understand that it was our time to move on. I’m not bitter anymore—or if I am, I promise I’ve been working on that.

While it seems to me that this chapter of my life has ended, I want to be able to go back and rewrite the last few pages. I won't--and can't--let this story end without making our friendship mean something.

In doing so, there’s something I would like you to know:

Thank you—thanks for teaching me that everything is temporary. We cannot expect our lives to stay the same without significant change, and for me to grow, for me to mature, you needed to leave.

You also taught me that the friends I have right this second could be temporary as well, so the time I have with them is more valuable than gold.

So drink that 5th beer when you need to, run through the water when the waves push you and let go of the people in your life when you have to--because there's nothing better in life than pulling yourself up and moving on.

So goodbye, good luck and I’ll see you around.