Dear Ex Best Friend Who Left Me When I Became Chronically Ill

They say, in life, on average we have a whole new set of friends every 7 years. If you’re lucky, you may surpass that average and have friends that literally last a lifetime. Or if you’re like me and aren’t so lucky, life may throw you some unexpected curve-balls that people in your life just can’t handle, and you may lose friends at a much more rapid pace than “the average person.”

I got sick when I was 14 and I lost every single person in my life that wasn’t blood related to me. 

I’ve lost more friends in my life than I can begin to try and count, and it took me time to fully accept that losing all of those friends was not my fault, and I didn’t do anything wrong. I simply got sick, and people couldn’t handle how serious and scary my life got, so they left. 

I don’t really blame them for leaving either because I’ve deeply struggled with handling my illness too. I wouldn’t expect people to stick around if even I can’t handle my own illness. It’s a lot. Believe me, I know. 

Over the years, I’ve made amends with many who left, but most never gave me a conversation for closure, or even just a goodbye. I’ve thought a lot about what I would say to those people who left without so much as a goodbye, and so I decided to write a letter. 

This letter is to no one person in particular, but instead is inspired by my accumulatory loss of countless friendships and the things I wished I had said to them. 

Dear ex best friend,

We always said forever, and I know we both believed we would beat the odds. I’m genuinely sorry that we didn’t.

Losing you was my first and biggest heartbreak. 

I know I shouldn’t apologize for this, but I’m sorry that I got sick and that it was too much for our friendship to survive through. I know it’s not my fault that I got sick, but it’s hard not to feel somewhat responsible for this. I truly wish that our friendship didn’t have to be collateral damage of my illness.

I’m sorry that I missed out on all the things we said we would do together. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be a part of it all, and most importantly, I always still wanted to be a part of your life. 

I’m not sure if you know this, but I need you to know that I didn’t reach out because I was too sick. I was fighting to survive. I really only ever saw or talked to my family or my doctors, and that’s it.

My lack of efforts to try and talk to you and catch up wasn’t personal. I didn’t have anything against you. I was just too sick, and if I did have the energy I hope you know I would’ve chosen to reach out to you. 

Over the years, I have made some new friends, but I haven’t forgotten about you, and I don’t see how I ever could. We were best friends, nothing will ever replace the bond we had and all of the wonderful memories we share.

Although at times I’ve missed you terribly, I realize life has taken us in different directions. I know I’ve changed immensely from my health-crisis detour in life, and I’m sure you’ve changed plenty with time as well. It’s hard to know things will never be as they once were between us, even if we did have a fresh start.

I do have to admit I don’t understand why you never reached out to me though. Was my life really that overwhelming to you? I know it is a lot to handle. 

I’m not mad that you had to leave, especially if that’s what was best for your own well-being. But you couldn’t even say goodbye? Was saying goodbye just too hard for you?

In my isolation I was left to wonder if everyone who left truly just did not care about me at all. But I want to believe that isn’t true. I want to believe that you just couldn’t bear to see me suffer, couldn’t cope with the possibly that I may die, and couldn’t bear to actually say goodbye. 

I’ve wished so much that we could just talk and find closure and peace. Maybe you have questions you want answered, and I know I have countless questions I’ve wished I could ask you. 

I’ve held out hope that you would one day return for us to finally have the conversation of closure we both deserve, but you never showed up, and in my small attempts to reach out to you, I felt utterly rejected. It hurt too much to keep trying. And who knows, maybe you feel the same and that’s why you gave up too. 

I’ve finally realized I need to let go of “us”, move on with my life, and let you move on with yours. 

Although it’s time for me to finally fully close the door on our past, just in case this really is the last time we talk, I need you to know a few last things before I go.

I still love you and can’t imagine a day that I won’t.

Your friendship was priceless to me and I truly will cherish it forever. 

There’s no hard feelings. I really have never been mad at you or solely blamed you for the end of our friendship. I only was ever sad about losing you, wondered what exactly went wrong, and wished things could be different. Please know, I take responsibility for my shortcomings in my half of our relationship.

I hope your life is full of people you can be your true self with, and that they love you unconditionally just as you are.

I hope your new friends support you, uplift you, are there for you, and follow through in doing all of the things you plan to do together. I wish so much that I could’ve been that for you, but I hope they make up for that in spades. 

I have always, and will always wish you all the best in life. 

I hope you find a plethora of happiness, passions, and love. 

I hope your true love is everything we dreamed they’d be and more. 

I hope your wedding is beautiful, that your kids are as fantastic as you were as a kid, and that your lifetime is full of endless adventures and blessings. 

If life every leads you back to me, don’t be afraid to say hello. 

If this is the end, please know I’ll never forget you, and I truly will cherish our memories forever.

Thank you for everything.

And to finally say the word you never could, and the one I’ve been putting off saying for far too long as well, but I think we both need to say it…

Goodbye. 

Love, your ex best friend. 

I’m Writing A Book!

I decided back in December that one of my goals for 2019 is that I’m going to write my book this year! I’ve been planning to do this for so many years and have been jotting down ideas for what feels like forever. It’s been a long time coming, so I’m beyond excited to finally officially be writing my book. 

I don’t know when I’ll be done, and haven’t worked out all of the logistics, but those are just details! 😉 I’m so happy and proud to be writing and I know that someway, somehow things will workout. I can’t wait to someday share my book with you all. ❤️😻

In short, my book is going to be about my life and everything I’ve been through. I’ll share all about my health journey and deepest struggles. It’s going to be deeply personal and vulnerable and I plan to share journal entries, poems, and all sorts of things I wrote real time along the way in my journey. 

Countless times people have told me they can’t imagine what it’s like to be me, to go through having my illnesses and come out on the other side so positive. People ask me all the time how I did it, how I got through it, and so I’m just going to openly and honestly tell everyone the whole story. I want to really paint people a vivid picture and have the reader step into my mind so they can understand what I went through, and what many people suffer through sometimes for their entire lives. 

I’m striving to spread awareness most importantly for the illnesses that almost took my life and did take the life of a beautiful friend of mine. But I also want to spread spread awareness for chronic illnesses and invisible illnesses at large, because there’s so much overlap in the struggles we face. 

I’m planning to write my book in a way that any age (from tween to grandparent) can read, appreciate, understand, and relate to it. I feel there’s a big lack of health related books like that. I want to talk about the hard things in ways everyone can still understand it.

I want other sick people to know they’re not alone and I would love to also give them hope or inspiration for the brighter days that lie ahead of them. 

I want to help parents, caretakers, friends, doctors, and anyone who has a sick person in their life, better understand what’s going on in the mind of that person they love. 

And I would love to help people who maybe aren’t at all personally related to chronic illness simply just better understand what other people go through. 

I want to help people better understand, and maybe with a better understanding there will be more empathy, and maybe with more empathy more compassion will arise, and maybe with more compassion people will actually take action and change lives and save lives and better the world. 

I believe we can fix this broken system, but we need more people to care, and I hope that my story may shed some much needed light to these topics. 

2019! My laptop and I are going to make some magic. Big things are coming. 💖