This saying has been said for many years.

You have three different friends in your life.

The ones who last a lifetime

The ones who come for a reason

The one who comes for a season

I have been lucky enough in my lifetime to have three of these types of friends and several friendships that have lasted twenty plus and one even forty plus years.

The ones that come for a reason or season sometimes are the ones who I find teaching me the most.  Looking back, what did I learn from those friendships, weather it was just fading away or maybe a death

Today I’m writing this because I’m saying goodbye to one of those season friends. Julie’s drinking got worse and I had to walk away, and now she’s gone.

Over the years each one has taught me something a little different, a nugget I can hold on to and use a life lesson.

How to be strong through all my surgeries, how to recover from all my addictions, how to treat my husband, how to treat friends in need of setting boundaries to name a few.  Each of those friendships holds a special place in my heart and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gotten to get to know them.

Julie, you taught me that boundaries hurt — and that loving someone sometimes means letting go. I’ll carry that.  I had to choose my own sobriety, and you knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier.

I will choose to remember the fun memories we had, kayaking down the river, pointing out all the turtles, your huge heart.  Every time I look at my garden boxes, I will remember the help you gave me even when it hurts.

Your willingness to help anyone in need, always wanting to help with food. Never afraid to say what was on your mind, the year we spent almost every day together is a year I will cherish forever.

Addiction creeps back in like a snake, and if you let it get hold of you it will take you, tightening slowly over time till you cannot let it go.

Will you be strong enough to do the right thing and ask for help? Receive the help? Accept the help? Can you call someone today for help? Ask your higher power for help? Attend a meeting for your addiction? Weather it be drinking, drugs, gambling, food, there are meetings all over. Read some sort of addiction helpful information? Thank your higher power for a day of sobriety at the end of the day?  I found when I started doing these five things every day my sobriety got easier every day.

If nobody has told you today, you matter! Tomorrow needs you! I need you!

Keep fighting!

Recovery is worth it!

Thanks for letting me share

-Tammy Rose