291 days, 9 months and 18 days, give or take 6,984 hours. I met my best friend Ellie on August 2nd and with that came amazing days and tough nights. With Ellie as a best friend and with our sister-like bond, I also got toxic conversations and dark humor to cope with our problems. 

 We were both at sleepaway camp when we met. We immediately became really close and we were each other's other half. We laughed and cried together and became like sisters. We hung out 24/7 for 4 weeks and then we both went home. We stayed in touch and face-timed almost every day. During February vacation we both happened to be in Florida, so we had a sleepover and talked the whole time. We were both so similar and different that we were perfect for each other. We hung out a bit ago and went bowling and caught each other up about things in our lives. Even if we didn’t talk for months, we would always pick up where we left off and that is what I loved about our friendship. We both had ups and downs in our lives and even through the worst of it, we were always there for each other no matter what. We would drop everything for eachother no matter what we have going on. Even though our lives were pretty busy with school, homework, and other activities, we would always find room for eachother. I couldn’t have imagined my life without Ellie because she helped me through some of my toughest days and nights. 

Now here I am without her. I find myself waking up and wanting to tell her about my life and then I remember that I can’t anymore. She cut me out so she could focus on herself because apparently, I was giving her too much stress. I was telling her too much about my life and she didn’t want to hear about it. I have a lot going on in my life right now and Ellie was helping me through it all. She told me what to do to move on and I didn’t listen. She told me that she would end our friendship if I kept making the decisions that I did. I listened to my heart and did what I thought was best and with that, I confronted her with how I felt about the situation. If she couldn’t be happy when I’m happy then she shouldn’t be in my life anymore. She told me that she was going through worse and not everything is about me and we haven’t spoken since the beginning of May. 

I cried for the whole week after that, I wanted so badly to just reach out to her and tell her that I was wrong so she would come back. Now that a couple of weeks have passed, I realize that not everyone in my life is going to be here forever and I have to separate the good and bad people in my life and get rid of whoever is making my life more toxic than it needs to be. Ellie was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me but it’s either her way or the highway. In the beginning, I didn’t want to stand up to her because she was my rock. I had no one else but her that knew everything about me. I didn’t want to start over with someone new when I know that they will never compare to Ellie and all that she has done for me. 

As much as Ellie broke me when she left, she also taught me a valuable lesson. No one will be here for me to the end like I will be. If I can’t rely on other people then I know that at the end of the day I still have me looking out for myself and that is more than enough. I need someone that knows deep down what I really want and the only person that truly knows that is myself.