If you can call yourself a friend of mine, then you are nothing but a liar because I have not had a friend since before I entered college.

Okay, that might be a stretch. I have had friendly encounters with people over the years and I can confidently say that I do have two incredibly good friends, my mother and (favorite) cat Jackson. However, I even know that I cannot talk to my mother about everything that comes across my mind such as boys, alcohol, and constantly feeling the urge to drop out of college, she will just freak out all the time and worry about my well-being. When I tell Jackson about my problems, he just turns his head the other way and falls asleep.

If I am going, to be honest with you, I have not had a legitimate friend that is not related to me in six years. Six in a half years ago, I had a lot of friends, well for me, six to be exact; but what I have learned over my teenage and young adult life is that friendships should not come in quantities but quality, and none of those past acquaintances of mine fit the bill.

Ever since, I have been avoiding friendships similarly to the way people avoid relationships after being in a relationship for many years. Before my sophomore year in high school, I had spent most of my life in unhealthy friendships, which always led to me chasing behind my “friends” with the hopes they either noticed me or did not forget that I was there. Dare I say it, but I was a needy friend. As much as it pains me to say it, that was a result of me not ever having a friend that genuinely cared about my well-being, and never really cared if I stopped talking to them the next day.

I can bore you to death explaining what happened between myself and my six former high school friends, so I will just keep it brief and cute. There was a lot of internal strife between every member of the group and eventually. It became a toxic friendship instead of the enjoyable, funny, and heartwarming friendship that it started as; Ever since then I decided to take some time for myself and take time to figure out not only what I want in a friend but find out who I am as a person.

Well, I am about to graduate college and I have spent more than enough time trying to figure out what I want in life and what I want is more time for myself.

I hope that makes sense.

Yes, these past four years have also been some of the hardest, but it has been the most awakening. I have realized that what I need in life is not to be surrounded by people that make me happy, I need to remove myself from reality and find peace within myself so I can make myself happy.

Then the people I choose to have in my life will add to that happiness.

If you have read my other posts, you will find that a lot of them might sound d a little heavy and sad, and it is. I do not want to write to you about feeling happy all the time when I am not, but who is happy all the time? Spoiler alert… nobody. If someone tells you that they are, they are lying.

However, the pain that I feel now is a result of it being suppressed for decades. It was not until I started college that I started facing those issues that I have been “sad,” but this sadness is good. It shows that I have emotions, and I have not become numb from all the pain and sadness that I have endured in my life, and something is comforting about that.

So, as I step off my soapbox and leave you, I would like to state that I am in the healing stage as some psychologists might call it. I am the furthest thing from needy and I think that I can be quite distant as I love having my space. It is important for everyone to check in with themselves and make sure that they are genuinely happy in life then ask where the bulk of that happiness is coming from.

Because having friends is great but it means nothing if you are not happy with yourself.