It's 2012, you're sitting in class staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring. You look at the front camera on your new customized pink iPhone 4 to make sure your thick application bottom eyeliner hasn't smeared... Who's sitting next to you? Who do you have plans for after school? Who are you dying to tell about your horribly hard and dramatic day of high school?
I would assume you're referring to this person as your "Best Friend Forever" because you more than likely spend every aching moment of your life with them. You talk about how they're going to be your maid of honor or bridesmaid and how you're going to marry brothers and be neighbors for the rest of your life.
Now, fast forward. It's 2018, you're in college working your butt off for your dream job. You've ditched the god-awful eyeliner and your phone is about 3x larger. Is the same person still sitting next to you? The same person that you couldn't wait to go hang out with after class? The one you had planned on being beside you through every moment and experience of your life. If you answered yes, then you are one of few.
Truth is, some people are only meant to be in your life for a chapter or two. Because just like you outgrew the thick eyeliner (hopefully), you can outgrow people as well.
Some people are meant for forever, and those people are extremely valuable to you, but so were the ones that you outgrew. I'm a firm believer that each and every person you come in contact with was put in your life at that very moment for a purpose.
There comes a time when your interests stray from the interests of your friends and if someone is meant to be in your life for the long run, then they will be. Good people will rub off on you just as bad people will. It's important to surround yourself with the people that are encouraging your growth when a person no longer does that anymore, it could mean that they're a purpose in your life has been served.
It's not selfish to walk away from someone that is holding you back from all the wonderful things you are going to do in your life. A person who supports these changes will grow alongside you and admire your self-improvements.
A relationship doesn't work if it's one-sided, sometimes its best to dismiss the conflictual differences you share with another and accept that you no longer share the same values.
So if you feel your wings are growing, embrace that and move on with your life. Just as the caterpillar who becomes a butterfly.
To the ones that I have outgrown, I will not apologize and neither should you. Instead, I will thank you for being in my life however long you may have been. I thank you for teaching me something new, for encouraging or maybe even discouraging my growth and forcing me to walk away, but most of all thank you for being you.
