I would just like to let my opinion be known....
I dont know of this "shit storm" that apparently is going on in everyones life. My life is quite good. Its happy, and busy.. and, at least for the moment, working out.

I too have lost one of my best friends of the year. Perhaps one of my best friends of all time. And yes, it is easier to just not talk to that person. But not because I dont want to. I do want to. I miss them very much. Or...I miss who I THOUGHT they were. But, apparently I didnt really knwo them, as they didnt really knwo themselves... You can only try to stay around for so long before someone pushes you too far to come back. My best friend made it apparent that they no longer needed my help and guidence that they had relied on so many times before. they wanted to live life by themselves... and who am I to stand in their way or try to stop them? Granted that it is my "nature" to want to "give my opinion in everything"... and that, to them, was an obsiticle to them becoming the person that they thought they wanted to be.
As the grapevine likes to tell it, this friend isnt doing so well. At all. And today, while I saw them it was all I could do to not run over and just hold them. Just embrace them, even if thats not what they want. But I saw that they now have their separate group of friends and new habits that they didnt want me a part of. Far be it for me to try and alter the reality that they have made for themselves.