There’s this poem my mom always preached to me, “People come in your life for a reason, season, or a lifetime..." and these words have stuck with me since high school, and they couldn’t be any more true.

People always leave, but honestly it always seems to be for the best, I’ve learned so many lessons from the people I was once friends with – especially the ones I left behind in high school.

I don’t want to be cruel, and I’m not writing this out of hatred, I’m simply writing this to say thank you.

I had a person who I called my ‘best friend’ for all four years of high school. I’m not saying she’s at fault here, because she’s not – well not completely anyways. I’m not going to go on and on about our dramatic friendship – let me emphasize, very dramatic friendship, however I do want to explain that people aren’t who they seem to be. Especially as you grow up, mature, and look back at all those memories you shared with your once called ‘best friend.' I’m sure everyone has one of these people, someone who you could once call your person, someone who would be there for you (except not really), and someone you could always laugh with, and no matter how often you fought you somehow found a way to re-patch that same worn out band-aid over and over again until it no longer stuck.

Alright so here it goes, an open letter to you, my ex best friend.

Thank you. Thank you for sharing countless of inside jokes with me. Thank you for always giving me your most honest opinion – which was usually always right (especially when it came to boys.) Thank you for hating the same people as me. Thank you for laughing with me and sticking by my side through the hardest of times. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for eating tons of junk food with me until our stomachs started to hurt. Most importantly, thank you for rocking out to Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber with me. For these were the best memories we had shared, and I will always cherish them.

Honestly I don't know what happened to you, or to me. But I do know our friendship declined pretty quickly. So thank you for the bad memories, for those meant just as much as the good ones did. Thank you for dragging me into you and your boyfriend’s fights because you were simply envious at the fact that I was friends with him. Thank you for never hanging out with me because of the dumb excuse that you never had time, when in reality you spent every second with your boyfriend (which is totally fine, but not if you’re your ‘best friend.')

Thank you for making me feel so s***** about things I didn’t need to feel s***** about. Finally, thank you for making me realize what a best friend is not supposed to do.

You put me down all the time; for example, if I succeeded in something that you didn’t, you pouted about it the rest of the day, making me feel like you didn’t want to see me happy (which, you probably didn’t.) You were never there for me, seriously. I will give you credit for being there the day I got my heart broken, but for a whole three hours, and only because it fit into your busy schedule. You ALWAYS rolled your eyes at me, and truthfully it was the most annoying, disrespectful thing that a ‘best friend’ could do. Lastly, you were fake. I’m going to be the bigger person and say I talked crap about you, but do not sit there and pretend you didn’t do the same to me. You talked crap about me to your boyfriend, who was also considered my friend, and pretended like you didn’t. I made mistakes too, but at least I own up to mine.

Honestly, I knew our friendship was going nowhere but downhill throughout senior year and for whatever reason we kept trying to work at it. I will never forget the time you lied straight to my face and backed it up with the fact that your boyfriend was only friends with me because you were, and he actually finds me really annoying. Let me just point out though, I was friends with him before you even came into the picture, and to be frank, I am the only reason you two met when you did. Who knows if you would’ve met without me, I’ll leave that up to the heavens to decide. And even after all this, I still called you my best friend.

I just want to say that I am happy I met you, I truly am, but I am happier that band-aid finally stopped sticking. You are the type of person who I will tell my kids not to be friends with, someone who I will look at and just feel sorry for. I do not envy you; truthfully sometimes I think I do when I see your pictures, and then it just hits me. I am not jealous of you; you can be who ever you want to be in this world, but it will not affect me. I will not be angry with you for succeeding. I will not hate you for making new friends. I just simply won’t care.

Let me just tell you, karma’s a b****, and it will bite you in the @$$ one day.

Now don’t flatter yourself (as you would call it) because I wrote this letter about you, simply be grateful that I took the time to do so. Thank you for all the s*** you put me through; it truly did make me a better person and made me realize I don’t need to keep people like you around in my life, not even for a season. I now know what a true best friend is, and I will not thank you for that.