Learning How to Walk Forward Without You
Some people are meant to come into your life for a lifetime, some for only a season, and it’s hard to know which is which.
This essay tries to make sense of a quiet ending without goodbyes or even closure. I didn't write this out of anger but out of reflection, even though this piece of writing is trying to understand loss, friendships, self growth and what it feels like to let go of people who once felt permanent. What follows is not just a story about a friendship's ending but also a story about learning how to walk forward without answers. Choosing peace over confusion, and rebuilding my value when other people failed to show up.
Every chapter comes to an end, and in 2026 my chapter with two of my best friends came to an end. I didn't expect it to happen. It's hard writing this because I'm tempted to think about it every now and then, once in a blue moon, and I always question myself: what went wrong? Was I a bad friend? Am I not enough to be viewed as their best friend? I run these questions in my head everyday trying to look for an answer, but I never found the closure I needed.
People say everything happens for a reason but I genuinely believe that people are put in our lives for a lesson. With every story there’s a beginning, there’s a middle, and there’s an end, and I believe that the time has come to an end in my chapter. There's something that sticks with me every time I hear it, and it's something that Madea once said: “If somebody wants to walk out of your life, let them go.”
Some people are meant to come into your life for a lifetime, some for only a season, and it’s hard to know which is which. And you’re always messing up when you mix those seasonal people up with lifetime expectations, but something I do is put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. When the wind blows, they’re over there, and when the wind blows that way they are over here, they’re unstable. When the seasons change they wither and die, they’re gone, but that’s alright.
Most people are like that; they’re not there to do anything but take from the tree and give shade every now and then. That’s all they can do. But we can't get mad at people like that, that’s who they are. That’s all they were put on this earth to be: a lesson. Some people are like a branch on that tree. You have to be careful with those branches too, cause they’ll fool you. They’ll make you think they’re a good friend and they’re really strong, but the minute you step on them, they’ll break and leave you high and dry.
But if you find two or three people in your life that are like the roots at the bottom of that tree, you are blessed. Those are the kind of people that aren’t going anywhere. They aren’t worried about being seen, nobody has to know that they know you, they don’t have to know what they’re doing for you, but if those roots weren’t there, that tree couldn’t live. A tree could have a hundred million branches, but it only takes a few roots down at the bottom to make sure that tree gets everything it needs. When you get some roots, hold on to them, but for anything else: just let them go. It's ok to let people go, but what’s not ok is leaving them in the dark without an explanation on why they left.
Sometimes, in high school, teenagers feel this sense of loss. They feel left in the dark after relationships end, and sometimes that affects them and how they move through their high school years. When having conflicts like this it’s difficult to deal with or to face when having that feeling of being left in the dark.
I have a bad habit of questioning if I was ever good enough to be loved and to be a best friend, sometimes I just overthink and shut down. When I question myself, people think I'm overthinking it, that I'm doing too much or they sometimes even think I'm just being overly sensitive. But you know what? It’s okay because I am sensitive and I'm not afraid of admitting it. When I question myself I get in my head and replay those moments that bother me, that upsets me, and that gets me mad. People might wonder what happened? Why am I always upset and so angry? Well that’s because they made me feel dismissed and honestly just because they don’t understand my emotions doesn't mean they are invalid my feelings don’t need to be loud to be real, and they don’t need approval to exist.
The problem I have is that they made the decision to leave me in the dark and to have me feel left out and with having that feeling of being dismissed, it hurts more than rejection, because rejection at least acknowledges you existed in the decision but to my friends, that didn’t mean anything to them, and they didn't stop to think about how it would affect me mentally and emotionally, how it would mentally and emotionally drain me, exhaust me, affect me, and just leave me empty.
I know I won't be able to find my answers now, maybe never, but that’s ok: sometimes finding the answer doesn’t come from them explaining themselves, it comes from you deciding to stop blaming yourself for choices you didn’t make. Their silence is not proof that I wasn't enough, it's just proof that they didn’t show up with the care I deserve and it sucks because I didn't imagine this pain to happen. It's to the point where their silence didn't change my value, it revealed their limits and who they really were, and something I'm not going to do is beg for clarity from people who choose confusion.
I am done over explaining myself; I am done chasing conversations, and I am done ignoring my needs just for them, so at this point I am not ending this chapter because I am angry, I am ending this chapter because I finally understand now, and understanding is enough for me to let go and choose peace for myself.
If you ever find yourself in a situation like this where you lose two of your best friends in the beginning of the new year or even in general, you can't control how people choose to leave, but you can control how to move forward and sometimes people see letting go as a negative thing and a toxic thing, but it’s not. It truly means you cared enough about yourself enough to not hold onto things anymore that don't hold you.
I'm just now learning that peace is not always found in revisiting the past but in trusting what is meant for you. Sometimes some endings are quiet, uncertain, and painful, but they mark the beginning of something louder within yourself: the self growth and strength to always walk forward without looking back.