Dear K(oward).

It was on this sunday 1 year ago, 52 weeks ago, 364 days ago, that you chose the easy way out, the cowardly way out – blocking, ghosting, deleting me. When, after a terrible mistake I made, you didn’t find enough love and care still there for me after over 9 years of friendship to at least try and give us another chance. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t expect you to forget about it and move on as if nothing happened. In fact, I expected you to AT LEAST say “Sorry, but I can’t trust you anymore or forgive you, I want to end this friendship.”, that would have been just the normal thing to do after so many years of friendship. Instead, just like you had done for over 2 years since you got divorced, you distanced yourself even more from me than you had already done for 24 months. I’ll give it to you – in over 9 years since we met, we NEVER fought even once, not even about the smallest, most idiotic thing. And I always felt lucky to have you as my – what I at least thought – best friend, that there was everything next to perfect between us, that we cared so much about each other that there was never any reason for any kind of dispute. We were annoyed about the same things, we liked the same things (hell, Conventions won’t ever be the same without you), and even if we didn’t talk every day or even every week over the years, when we did, it always felt like we talked just yesterday – and there was barely anything I looked forward more to than whenever I visited you in your hometown; those 4 hours of trainride always felt like coming home to me.

Then everything changed, and maybe it was MY fault for not addressing it right away, for not risking a dispute or a fight about how you changed, how you suddenly seemed to not really need or want me in your life anymore. Maybe then my worries and anger wouldn’t have piled up over the 2 years it took until I made the mistake that led to the end of our friendship. It’s easy to think of the “What If”s when you can’t change a fucking thing, but still – what if I wouldn’t have cursed so much when I was annoyed in London or at Rogue Events, which obviously made you being embarrassed by me? What If I would’ve never tried to bring you and my dear friends from the UK together when you so clearly didn’t want anything to do with them? What If I would’ve learned during the almost 10 years of friendship to just trust you’d always be in my life, that I didn’t need to feel bad if I did more to keep in touch, when it was clear that with me being single, and you in a relationship and, later, in a marriage, it would always be the natural way because I had more time to myself?

Then again, after realizing you deleted my number last year just 3 days before my birthday, and blocking me on social media, I had a lot of time to think, and to let my anger not longer being suppressed. WHY did I have to feel I had to stop cursing and basically being myself around you when I thought of you as my best friend, with whom one should feel the most comfortable around? WHY should I feel so bad that you didn’t want to spend time with my UK friends when in London that I rather chose you than them a lot of times because I didn’t want you to be angry at me? WHY did I always feel bad when I mentioned my IBS problems to you when they have been one of the biggest and sadly, most important parts of my life for the past few years, instead always trying to stop mentioning it because you gave me the feeling it made you feel uncomfortable? And hell, WHY did I never truly want to accept the fact that with me mostly contacting you first, it was because you were obviously more important to me than I was to you?

Because the truth is – I wasn’t. Because if I would’ve meant as much to you did to me (until a few months before my mistake), then you would’ve ALWAYS made the effort to read my short stories (which I always write in english because it feels more natural to me) when I finished one or needed someone I trusted to read it and give me honest feedback during the writing process. You wouldn’t have had to keep reminding me that your english wasn’t good enough or that you couldn’t read it because you didn’t have an E-Reader. IF you truly ever cared that much about me, then you WOULD HAVE made an effort; you would’ve been so proud of me for writing that you, as a true friend, would’ve sat down and at least TRIED to read my words, even if it meant looking up every 2nd word in a dictionary. But the truth was – you just couldn’t give enough shit to support my hobby/dream.

And as much as I wanted to turn back time, to never have been pissed enough to write that tweet, to go back to where we were 364 days ago, to take back all the tears I cried over my fucking mistake and losing you in the days after that, I have to admit that this past year has been the best year I have had in a very, very long time – despite Covid-19. Or maybe, BECAUSE of Covid-19, because if that wouldn’t have happened, we would’ve probably never had fallen out with each other at all. But as more time passes, I feel somewhat more free – without you, I don’t feel like I often have to pretend to be fine with stuff, I don’t have to hide some of my characteristics because you might feel embarrassed or anything. I didn’t have the picture perfect upbringing that you had – both parents alive, a great relationship to your sister, grown up in a big house with a garden, never having any money issues growing up and later, being pretty and obviously popular in school and with boys/guys. Instead, I am loud when I am pissed off, I use the worse language a woman could probably use, I am easily annoyed by the tiniest things, and I am mostly a very negative person because overall, I did not have a lot of good experiences in my life.

And therefor, you choosing the cowardly way out – deleting, blocking and ghosting me on Sunday, May 3rd, 2020, was the best thing that could’ve probably happened to me at that time, as now, I feel more confident now that I don’t have to feel like I have to compete with you killing it with your diet, keeping healthy, having a strong enough mindset to set yourself goals – despite knowing full well that that was toxic thinking because I obviously had a very difficult relationship with my body, sliding into some sort of anorexia/bulimia, and thinking I had to keep up with you losing weight, becoming thinner and looking even more prettier than you did before triggered me more than I will probably ever be able to admit.

So you throwing me away, out of your life like the trash you clearly thought I was last year maybe saved my mindset, and maybe, somehow, my life, because ever since, I feel more comfortable with 2kg more on me, not having to think “Fuck, K keeps losing weight, looking good, I’ll kill myself if I someday become the fat friend.” Plus, over the course of this pandemic that now lasts for almost 14 months, I have learned to truly appreciate the friends I had in my life along with you, and whom I always somehow didn’t cherish as much as I should. I’m closer to one of them especially since then, because I know that no matter what – I can be who I am around them at all times, cursing and shouting and whatnot.

So this is MY final goodbye. I won’t waste another thought on somebody who for the last 2 years of our friendship so obviously didn’t care enough about the over 7 years before that, about all the travels, experiences and memories that she couldn’t even at least TRY to forgive me, to give us another chance. I won’t wish bad things on anybody except my mother’s horrible husband, but…one day, I hope you’ll somehow walk a mile in my shoes, with the personal and health and mental problems and realize that all you sometimes need to get through that is to let it out, be yourself and unload your shit to your best friend because that’s what best – or very, very close – friends are actually for.