To All the Friends I Ever Loved — Je t’aime et adieu

Happy New Year with love, Butler & Co.

Happy New Year fam!

Do you all get reflective too at the end of a year? There always seems to be a focus looking forward, on "new year, new me", but this year especially, I can't help but looking back as I step into 2026. While I'm excited, thrilled to experience everything I'm going to gain in 2026, I can't help but still feel connected to all that I've lost in 2025.

This year asked me to close chapters with long-term friends and even family that I never imagined ending. It’s a quiet kind of grief we don’t name often. We talk about divorce in a romantic sense, but what happens when we have to divorce friends and family?

Letting go of people you love hurts in ways that are hard to explain. You carry the memories, the laughter, the shared seasons but wrestle with the guilt, shame, and sadness that comes with knowing that the good times weren't enough to protect you from their hurt. Constantly you have to choose yourself. That choice is growth. It’s painful. It’s necessary. And it doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real.

I’m not who I once was. These days, I’m grown. I’ve learned how to stand in myself a little firmer, a little softer, all at once. And honestly? I think Kehlani said it best in “Personal” when she reminds us that growth looks like choosing yourself without apology — loving deeply while still protecting your peace. That line has been sitting with me, because it feels exactly like where I am right now: rooted, honest, and no longer shrinking to make room for anyone else.

So please hear me when I say this: choosing yourself will sting at first. You’ll feel guilty. You’ll question everything. You might even feel like the villain in someone else’s story. But choosing you is a wound that heals into freedom.

Sometimes we have to loosen our grip on people to finally hold ourselves. And that is okay.

So, here’s a glass to everyone I’ve ever loved. Life is split into the chapters of different versions of ourselves, and while I hold you in my heart while I continue writing, I can't keep you as a physical character. I never really said goodbye because I didn’t know what words could hold that moment. But I knew I had to finally put myself first, and while it may not seem kind, maybe the truth is you don’t owe closure when it costs you your peace.

Fam, if you’re holding onto something that no longer feels right, let it go. If you’ve been pouring into everyone else, pour back into yourself. You don’t have to wait for a new year to begin again, but hey, no time like the present, right?

Life isn’t promised. Hug the people you love. Call the one who makes you smile without trying. Release what no longer serves you. Life is far too short to be anything less than magic.

And as we gently bid adieu to 2025, I’m wishing you a deeply magical new year.