I keep seeing articles named “A letter to my ex-best friend” and it breaks my heart. I’m at the age where we start growing apart from friends we’ve known for years, but that doesn’t mean that this changes what the friendship was before. Coming from a small town, everyone had a friend group. My entire Instagram was covered with the same girls just a little over 5 months ago, but now I barely talk to any of them. This doesn’t change how it was before, though.

All my major moments from high school involve them. Prom, Homecoming, and graduation all have pictures of them. All the laughs, the inside jokes. You can’t just forget about all of that, no matter how far apart y'all are or how much things change. One of the things that I always heard growing up was that “You won’t keep in touch with your high school friends”. Why? Is this an unspoken rule? Growing up is hard enough, why make it even harder by discarding everyone you’ve ever known? Obviously, you won’t keep in touch with Sally from math class that you talked to about once a month, but there is no reason that college should become so busy that you completely forget about the girl who was like your other half.

I’m not suggesting that you don’t ever break out of your shell and meet new friends, or that you should always cling to your hometown and never leave. All I’m saying is that it’s not a definite that you won’t ever talk to your best friend again. Hang out when you come home, call them sometime. Just because y'all aren’t together 24/7 anymore doesn’t mean that you can't keep the friendship that lasted so long.