The Hardest Thing I’ve Admitted: I Haven’t Been a Good Friend

I’ve been a horrible friend these last three years. Writing that hurts, but it’s the truth I’ve been sitting with for a while now.


The first year after my Dad died, I was a shell of myself. Not dramatic. Not poetic. Just empty. I showed up when I could, disappeared when I couldn’t, and often didn’t have the words to explain why. I wasn’t intentionally distant  I just didn’t have access to myself anymore. Grief took up every inch of space inside me, and there was nothing left to give. I didn’t know how to be a friend when I was barely surviving as a human.
The second year wasn’t much better.


I thought time would magically fix things, but it didn’t. I was still numb, still operating on autopilot. I answered texts days late. I canceled plans last minute. I missed birthdays, celebrations, moments that mattered. On the outside, I was building, creating, and showing up as an entrepreneur but internally, I was drowning quietly. Running a business while grieving taught me how to perform strength while feeling completely hollow.


This third year has been different. Not easy just different. The fog didn’t lift all at once, but slowly, with intention. Therapy cracked me open in ways I didn’t expect. Movement, travel, journaling, and small lifestyle shifts helped me reconnect to my body and my emotions. I started to feel again  and with that came guilt. Guilt for how absent I had been. Guilt for how many people I love that I let down without explanation.


Grief doesn’t just make you sad. It makes you unreliable. It makes you cancel. It makes you withdraw. It makes you protect your energy at the expense of relationships you care deeply about. And as an entrepreneur, the pressure to keep going to keep producing, smiling, leading only deepened that isolation. I was pouring everything into survival and work, leaving nothing for friendships that once felt effortless.


There are people I love deeply who didn’t get the version of me they deserved. Friends who reached out and didn’t hear back. Friends who stopped inviting me because I kept saying no. Friends who needed me, and I just couldn’t show up. I understand how that could feel like abandonment. I understand how silence can feel personal, even when it’s rooted in pain.


Now that I’m emerging, I’m holding space for a hard truth: some friendships may not survive this version of me. And that breaks my heart — but I also respect it. People are allowed to have limits. They’re allowed to protect themselves. They’re allowed to decide they can’t wait for someone to come back to life.


What I hope  more than anything is that there’s still room in some hearts for me. Room for grace. Room for understanding. Room for the version of me who is trying again. And if there isn’t? I’m learning to honor that too. Healing doesn’t guarantee reconciliation. Sometimes it just brings acceptance.


I’m not writing this for sympathy. I’m writing it for honesty and for anyone else who feels like grief turned them into someone they don’t recognize. You’re not broken. You’re grieving. And grief doesn’t come with a rulebook or a timeline.


If I’ve been distant from you, know this: it was never a lack of love. It was survival. I’m learning how to be present again slowly, imperfectly, intentionally. And I’m giving myself permission to rebuild relationships the same way I rebuilt myself: one step at a time.


If there’s still space for me, I’m grateful. If not, I still send love. Either way, I’m choosing to keep healing  and that has to be enough.