"Write hard and clear about what hurts." ~ Ernest Hemingway

So, at the end of last year, one of my dear friends transferred schools. I knew (but didn't fully understand at the time) that it was for the better. I knew that I wouldn't get to see her as much. All I truly knew (and understood) at the time was that I couldn't bear to completely lose contact with her. I am fortunate. She and I still talk, she is happy, at peace, much better overall. And while I'd be lying if I didn't say I miss her every day I don't see her, I am now at peace and have come to accept that this transfer was the right decision...for her and everyone around her.

Below is something I wrote about her leaving school. She is one of my closest high school friends. When hard things like this happen to me, I turn to writing as a release. (I write in second person, "you" is me talking to myself.)

There was a point in time when a friend was about to leave you. The music swayed, she fell, and you fell, too. She fell away, fell out of love with the sisterhood you had built from scratch together. You fell down, into the traps of your mind when she left without a goodbye. You fell on your knees, down the stairs that carried both of you through so many laughs. She was bruised deeply by the illness coursing through her veins and by friendships that couldn't be rebuilt. You were bruised by the truth of the reality of her state of being, even though you could never get the whole truth out of her. Her mind was taxed a little too much, and that in turn taxed your heart. Final days were filled with tears of a truth that was too far gone to be changed back to the happy reality in which you once lived. You passed the hours without her by drowning out the screaming truth everyone heard but only you could not accept fully with the music that made visions of her returning swing a little too high to be possible. Words became everything to you, life had a new meaning, as did loss, and the sayings you repeated to yourself constantly were suddenly colored a bit differently, with a new light shed upon them. And every night from that point on, you painstakingly tried to push out the what-ifs of life without her by your side.

Just remember: Never give up on the friends, family, and loved ones that appear to be lost. If both of you want to maintain the good relationship, it will happen. Just be willing to put in the effort if you really want it. It will pay off.