All my life, I’ve been obsessed with everyone. I wanted everyone to like me and in return, I genuinely liked everyone back. I made a million coffee dates and went to a million parties and mailed cards to everyone on their birthdays. I shared life updates via FB chat and posted photos on their timeline telling them I missed them. I went out of my way to visit them at work or bring them a coffee just because.

And none of this was fake, because I had convinced myself that I liked everyone. I believed I had an endless slew of friends because I had simply been blessed with so many wonderful people.

It wasn’t until quite recently that I realized this was, in fact, no longer true. I did not like everyone. And, simultaneously, I realized everyone probably didn’t like me.

This was initially a tough pill to swallow, and I fought it for a long time. I blamed slowly losing touch with people on circumstance and convinced myself that I was really upset about it. I probably even cried a couple times over the fact that I was losing people in my life.

But eventually it hit me. I don’t know why or how or if there was something that set me off, or if I simply was just too tired that I didn’t have it in me to care anymore. Regardless of the reason, I suddenly stopped giving a fuck.

I recognized that I truly did not like everyone. I recognized that I had relationships with people I was desperately holding onto, but deep down I didn’t really care about. I stopped sending monthly life updates and in exchange stopped receiving them, and it wasn’t bitter or rude or sad. It simply was, and it felt like we had simply stopped putting effort into something that didn’t need our effort anymore. Life happened, and we moved on.

I have felt this happen more and more recently. You lose touch with people, or your friendship kind of changes into something much less involved. It’s simple, and you have a mutual understanding that this is what’s supposed to happen.

This was the biggest kicker for me: realizing how much I actually didn’t care. I felt like a bad person. I felt guilty and sad and as if I was this crazy bitch for being okay with the fact that life was taking us all in separate directions. I felt like my heart had hardened, and it was a huge obstacle for me to realize this was not the case. This wasn’t a horrible thing – it was barely even a thing. Instead, it was quite natural. We grow and change and move on. We get hooked on a new brand of face wash and replace our lip balm because it fell out of your purse again. We live our lives and love the direction it takes, and following that direction suddenly makes more sense than holding on to where you used to be.

And being okay with this doesn’t make anyone a bitch. It simply means we’re growing up and our priorities are different, and letting ourselves pursue what makes us happiest is insanely freeing. We put time into the people and things that we want to put time into, and sometimes we lose some people in the process and sometimes we rekindle friendships with people we truly never thought we’d see again. And sometimes these people end up being some of the most important people of all. And in the end, it becomes quite evident that everything truly does happen for a reason, and we are exactly where we’re supposed to be with exactly who we’re supposed to be there with.

When you stop liking everyone, it doesn’t mean you’ve become closed off or hard. It just means you’ve become so happy you can finally let yourself free.