I’ve come to learn that once you stop being happy 100 percent of the time, the people present in your life will start to drop like flies. I suppose this is sort of natural for people who don’t play a significant role in your life-they just don’t want to be around someone who “brings them down” or “just isn’t fun to be around anymore.” The fact of the matter is, however, that no matter who you are, you will reach at least one low point in your life. And the people who stand by you during that time are the ones who really matter.

Through the course of a year (between this time last year and now), I believe I have changed the most compared to any other big changes in my persona-and there have been many. This is due to many not-so-fun reasons that I won’t sadden anyone with, but the point is, after this change I’m down to a very small handful of people in my life. But I’m okay with it, because the people who just up and left as soon as things got difficult clearly didn’t matter too much in the long run.

You can’t just pick and choose when to love and support people. You can’t only love people when they’re joyful and fun. That is, if you want a long-lasting relationship with them. If that’s the case, you’re going to have to deal with all the ugly, bad, depressing things that come with them. Because that’s how life works-nobody is this perfect ball of light that is just happy all the time. We’re not robots, we’re humans with hard lives and emotions.

If you have “friends” in your life that ditch you when things go bad, I would suggest not welcoming them back into your life once you’re well again. Fair-weathered friends are short-term friends (this goes for family members and significant others as well). By them practically asking you to never be sad around them is asking you to be someone that you’re not. Nobody should feel like they can’t express their emotions because they don’t want to annoy or burden people. I’m grateful for everything I’ve had to deal with because although it has changed me, I’m now able to see who is really willing to stick by me.