When Friendships End: Learning to Sit With the Ache

Friendship breakups don’t come with closure most of the time. They just end. And the world expects you to move on quickly. But what I’m learning is that there’s something powerful about not rushing through it. There’s something deeply human about letting yourself sit with the absence. The last few years in which I became someone new in the physical absence of my Grandma Babe, many of my close relationships and family bonds have unraveled.

I have been forced to sit with things even when I want to escape or even confront.

For me, sitting with it looks like:

• Allowing the tears to come in waves—it has been rare and untimely when the tears do come, and sometimes they come when I am laughing or just staring straight ahead.

• Noticing what memories feel like in my body: the good ones and the sharp ones, both at once.

• Choosing to care for myself with softness: facials, long showers, morning or night walks, things that make me feel like I’m coming back home to myself.

• Not numbing it with distractions but slowly finding new creative rituals that remind me of who I am outside of that friendship. This was the one because I feel like I never really recognized how much of my time was wound up in catering, with limited capacity to my relationships.

  
  

And in the middle of it all, I’ve been practicing gratitude. Gratitude for what we shared. Gratitude for the people who are still here. Gratitude for the reminder that love can transform, even when it doesn’t stay. I don’t have a clean ending to this process yet—and maybe that’s the point. Healing doesn’t arrive in a straight line. It comes in layers. It comes in Matcha and Iced Coffee. It comes in Sun bathing and most defnitely in the naps.

So, if you’re grieving a friendship or many friendships... too, here’s my gentle reminder:You are allowed to feel it. You are allowed to take your time. And you are allowed to trust that the right connections, the ones that honor the person you are becoming, will find their way to you.

Your healing is your homecoming. Take your time.

Self-Care Suggestion:

If you’re in this season, consider creating a small ritual for yourself. A quiet moment with a candle, a journal, and your favorite skin treatment—something that allows you to reconnect with you. (You can browse the Blyssom collection [https://www.blyssombyshapel.com/shop] to inspire that soft moment.)

Have you ever experienced a friend breakup?

What’s one way you took care of yourself through it? I’d love to hear your reflections in the comments.