I had to stop on the way home tonight and spend two hours sitting under a tree on the green near the house, in the dark, crying until I started dry-heaving. I wanted to establish some kind of explicit distance, because I am at (past?) a tipping point, and never ever again am I going to let myself depend on someone I consider a close friend who turns out not to be there. If she'd rather nothing more to do with me, rather no friendship at all than a scaled-back one, then that's her call to make, and nobody needs to deal with how I lash out when people no longer have time for me, least of all someone with so much new and exciting going on in their life.

She always told me how she's just been able to cut people out of her life and move on; maybe that's the last gift left to me from our time as friends.

Earlier, smashingly, transcendantly drunk, I think I broke through some kind of barrier - and I genuinely, sincerely, and with all the love I have in me, wish her all the best.

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.