what an afternoon of coffee, cake, and conversations can make you realize

I treated my friend Val for coffee and dessert at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf this afternoon. We haven't seen each other since the second week of September so twas nice to be able to catch up (though we always chat on YM). We've been putting off telling each other what's been going on in our respective lives so that when we do see each other, we'd have lots of things to talk about. We were supposed to see each other a month ago, but we kept on postponing and postponing until it only took a spur of the moment decision for our plan to meet up to finally push through. Anyway, I had a great time with Val today. I mean, we always have a great time together. We were classmates during our freshman year in high school, but we became really close friends on our senior year. We were actually bestfriends, up until we had a major fight a couple of weeks before high school graduation. We patched things up a few months after that, and we haven't had a single fight since.

Val is only one of the few friends I have from high school who I can actually say is a real friend. Even if we don't see each other often, the depth of our friendship is still there. What's great is that we know that we want to remain friends for the rest of lives--go on adventures and what not, be each other's children's godmothers, etc.

I've been thinking about friendship a lot these past few days. After talking to one of my friends about letting go of certain people who you realize aren't really true friends, it got me thinking. Yes, we are at the age where we evaluate and re-evaluate our relationships--what's worth keeping and letting go. Instead of feeling regret, we just need to focus on what good letting go will do for us. Letting go is a natural part of life. We need to let go of things, memories, people so that we can move forward. At times, yes it is hard to let go--but we have to. There are times, I have to admit, that I find it really difficult to let go. Not until something major happens will I suddenly realize that I should've let go a loooong time ago. One thing I would constantly remind myself now is instead of focusing on the reasons to hold on, we should focus on the reasons why we're letting go.