How odd is it to grieve the loss of someone who is still alive?

I am no stranger to friendship breakups one bit. I have been through two major ones in my life that have shaped me to be the resilient person I am today. 

2 years ago, my friendship with this one girl bloomed beautifully. We would call everyday and play video games together for hours. We laughed at the most stupid things we could think of and, occasionally scared each other. But in the end, we laugh so so so hard. Then came the end of September of that year. There was a rift. A hard one. I didn’t think I was going to survive September or October. Granted I wasn’t perfect, but when our friend group dropped me, she ultimately went to them in the end. 

I struggled for months.

Looking at my old journal on this small diary I got for Christmas in 2022, my journal entries were heartbreaking. “…____ wanted more friends in the end…” 

I forced myself to get over it in mid-December, blocking her on everything, after being on and off friends with her. I really missed her and would go back to her when I felt lonely and I felt like shit for doing that, even if she didn’t care about that.

Journaling helped and so did therapy. But what didn’t help was having two close friends get into a relationship, and then breaking up before becoming friends with them, and knowing they had a rifted relationship similar to mine, and seeing them get super clingy to each other and get together. It gave me false hope and a broken will. I started missing her so so so bad. Those two closest friends getting together reflected in my mind as an idea that I could possibly get the friendship back that I missed so dearly - even if we did each other wrong. 

It got bad. And my closest friends weren’t helping when they were touching each other in front of me. (That’s a story for another time)

Well, me and the girl started becoming friends again last October and it felt so so so great. She was a better friend to me than my own best friend at that time. That story will come soon enough — don’t worry.

But I’m started to get scared, worried, and angry. She’s treating me second best to her friend group again. She did this in December and I talked with her about it because the person she chose over me she didn’t even like but she was with her because she didn’t want to cause drama in their friend group (BS I know). 

I was walking into school with her today and we ran into one of the girls in her friend group and her boyfriend walking into school today. We passed by the cafeteria and I told her to come with me and she hesitated, but then came with me anyways, with an angry look on her face? 

“But you always make me come with you to breakfast. I don’t get anything”

So I said something like “Me when my best friend wants to hang out with me because I’m her best friend” from her point of view.

“I have other friends!” 

Yes. I know you do. And I have other friends too, but you are my best friend who I have ZERO classes with and you have classes with your other friends. 

I don’t have many other close friends. I have small groups of people but not super close as I’d like to have friendships with people. 

I hate saying it but my closest friends are my online friends. No offense Zack and Yeva, I love you guys so much. I struggle with telling people that my closest friends are online and not my best friend who I see almost everyday because I’m scared people will judge me and think I’m fucked up and can only make friends online.