best fr ~/~ iends

i've never been good at letting go of stuff. in fact, i suck at it, especially when it comes to relationships. i like to think that it's because we are not, in general, made for transient relationships, even if it's years before they fade. we're made for eternity, for eternal things, and to see something, anything, that is or even was dear to us is, or can be, incredibly painful. i've been fighting this one for quite a while, but i am finally coming to terms, beginning to come to terms, with the fact that some very dear friends of mine have been, were very dear friends.
the hardest part is that i'm sort of a die-hard. it's usually the other person who moves on first. i don't like to let go.
sometimes, really, that can be a good thing. it can be good to fight for friends, lovers, family, in a world that holds them cheap and expects to collect a large assortment of has-beens.
sometimes it's a set-back, keeping me from being able to accept that i am in a different place, and that i need to welcome in the new people.
sometimes i think what happened to that old song? make new friends, but keep the old / one is silver and the other gold. sometimes i feel like it's because i will never be enough. i will never have enough to offer; my social insufficiencies and my intense emotions are always going to sway the scales in the balance of enough already; just walk away. (c'mon, folks. you don't need to dither. i know my shortcomings. and i've seen them wear away at long-suffering individuals.)
i wish i knew better. i wish i knew how to make the love and loyalty and strength in my heart more apparent to my friends. i wish i knew how to cover my faux pas so that they would be more easily forgotten and forgiven. i wish i knew how to convey how very, very dear my friends are. and, if that all even isn't enough, i wish i knew how to let them go when they've had enough.
it's getting close to the new year. the new liturgical year begins in weeks, almost days. so as i bid you adieu, my dear friend, without whom my life would have been much bleaker . . .

shall auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
shall auld acquaintance be forgot in the days of auld lang syne?
for auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lange syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet
for auld lang syne