watering dead plants & other acts of loyalty

on losing friendships, choosing yourself, and knowing when to stop giving

2025 was a year I never imagined living through a roller coaster I definitely didn’t enjoy. I lost friendships I had blind faith would never end, and it made me feel like that line from Friends: “It’s rock bottom, fifty feet of crap, then me.” Now, in hindsight, it feels like a blessing in disguise. Maybe these friendships had run their course. I tried solving things like I always have, but this time I chose to step back and see if they valued me too. I don’t want to say I was right. I might have made mistakes, but they weren’t worth giving up bonds that had been there for more than a decade.

I’ve always given everything in friendships, ever since childhood when I desperately wanted someone to eat lunch with and would do anything not to feel left out. I was always the one to put my guard down first. This time, it felt better not to water dead plants again and again. Maybe losing them wasn’t the end of something beautiful, but the beginning of finally choosing myself. So why did it take me so long to learn that I deserve friendships that choose me back?

Love, S.

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Hi S,

I want to start by sharing with you how I experienced friendship thus far, across multiple institutions, workplaces, countries, and even, socio-economic class—at its worst it’s been: painful, disappointing, chaotic, exhausting—captured perfectly by your chosen Friends’ quote,

“It’s rock bottom, fifty feet of crap, then me.”

But at its best, it’s been a safe space, kind, heartwarming, and a gateway to family.

I want to give you that snapshot before I begin in earnest, so that you may know that friendships—chosen wisely, with enough work, and a sprinkle of luck, can be one of the most rewarding relationships you can ever have.

Now, I wanna sit with what you said about lunch. From where I’m standing, that little girl who just wanted someone to eat with, who bravely put her guard down first every single time—she deserves so much credit for the person you became: someone who knows how to love people fully, without reservation.

In retrospect, it may feel like a flaw. But I argue, it’s actually a gift.

The world just hasn’t been careful enough with it; it’s that missing sprinkle of luck I spoke of earlier. And from your tone, I have a nagging suspicion, it may also be the harshness of youth. Neither of which are permanent. The thing about luck, is that you can increase the surface area for it to occur; in this instance, you can explore other space where you can meet more people, and consequently, have a chance at building the kinds of friendships that bring you happiness.

As for youth. Well, it has a way of sharpening everything to a point. Every falling out feels final, every loss feels like evidence of something, every unanswered message a verdict. But that intensity, that unforgiving clarity you hold everything up to; it softens. Not because you stop caring, but because you accumulate enough living to know that people are complicated, timing can be cruel, and most things are less about you than they feel in the moment.

Harshness doesn't last. What tends to remain, if you let it, is the part of you that loved so openly in the first place. And knew, eventually, that it was worth protecting. After all, there’s a particular kind of grief that accompanies losing long-standing friendships (in my experience, even short friendships can do this) that no one really prepares you for. No one sends flowers or checks in months later. And yet the absence can be deafening: in group chats that go quiet, inside jokes with nowhere to land, and that strange vertigo of a life that used to include them.

I have moved enough times in my life, where often the move meant a collapse of an entire support system of friendship; not just one person, but an entire architecture. So when I say I hear you, I mean it. It's painful, and it's isolating, and it's okay to sit with those things.

But here’s the silver lining: that little girl who bravely put her guard down first every single time? She was never the problem. She just needed to step outside of her situation. And this year, you did exactly that. You stepped back.

That’s not giving up, it’s paying attention. There’s a huge difference between watering a plant and refusing to accept it’s dead. You finally let yourself see it clearly, and that costs something. As for why it took so long; I don’t think you were slow.

Truth is, I think you were loyal. It just took time to realize that:

loyalty to someone else was never meant to come at the expense of loyalty to yourself.

“Maybe losing them wasn’t the end of something beautiful, but the beginning of finally choosing myself.”

You wrote that. Sit with it; that’s not a small thing to arrive at, and you earned every word of it.

So here's to the friendships that choose you back.

Fair warning: it's part luck, part effort, part being in the right place at a time you couldn't have planned. None of it is entirely in your hands. But some of it is—and you've already done that part.

You showed up for yourself. And that? It could easily be the thing that allows you to differentiate between friendships of circumstance, choice, and the type that started as the former and actively morphed (by choice) into the latter.

Not everyone learns that distinction. You just did. And it only cost you a year.

someone saved by friendships more times than she can count,

it’s michelle d.

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Hiii, in case you stumbled upon this serendipitously,

A quick intro:

I’m an intersectional human trying to figure out life, love, business, and help others a long the way. I used to write a lot, literally had an entire IG account on it. But life got in the way, so here I am: battling life back & getting back into writing.

One thing I learned from writing essays is how much I love the interaction and community around it. Hence the core concept of this newsletter: unsent letters.

Send me a Letter

Send me a quiet confession. Dilemmas that keep you awake, unspoken feelings, the truths that live only in your head. I don’t advise severely; I’m not qualified for that. But I can read, reflect, and remind you (& me) — it’s not just you. It’s us.

Unsent letters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6