The Problem With Growing Up Is Losing Your Friends

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Someone once told me that if a friendship can last seven years, it will last a lifetime. I’m reaching a point in my life when friendships are starting to reach that point. And I am thankful. Thankful for the people I’ve had the pleasure of growing up with. Those who know me better than anyone else. Those who saw me through my awkward “I’m going to bark like a dog at people I don’t like” phase when I was seven and my “I refuse to wear short shorts” phase when I was 13. Those who I don’t have to explain anything to because they were there too.

But the problem with growing up is not everyone is going to grow up with you. Some you lose along the way. Sometimes it’s almost painless. Like losing a tooth when you’re young. The tooth is wiggly until one day it painlessly gives way and you lose the tooth. The pain doesn’t come till one day by accident your tongue discovers the raw hole where the tooth used to be. Then although it hurt you can’t help but touch it. Losing a friend can be like that. As the tooth wiggles, you and the friend drift apart slowly. Until one day when you finally lose the tooth, you realize you don’t even know what city the “friend” lives in anymore. But something will remind you of them. Whether it be a photo or a song, something will remind you and like your tongue returning to the hole, your mind will continue to return to the good times you had with them, no matter how bitter sweet feeing it leaves.

Sometimes though, losing a friend is hard. Sometimes it’s filled with heartbreak like your worst break up. This happens when a friend consciously decides they no longer want you in their life for what they deem a worthy reason. Maybe you fought, maybe you dated their ex or maybe they just want a new start. Either way, they have decided this is where your story will end. You are cut from the next season of the show. And it will hurt. It will hurt like crazy. But you have to let them go, because they never left you a choice. And it’s a times like this, you’ll regret growing up. You’ll try to stop it, try to go backwards. But you can’t and never will.

People become a part of you when you love them. You give them a part of yourself and if you’re lucky they give you a part of them and that’s how you know a friendship is real. When you make a friend, you’re changed forever, because you lose that piece of you and keep part of them. Slowly it intertwines with your soul until it’s barely distinguishable from your own soul. And as you grow up you lose more of yourself and gain pieces of others until you become a beautiful mosaic of those you’ve loved along the way.

The problem with growing up is it hurts to give away a piece of you. But the beautiful part is you become the piece of art you were meant to be.

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