It was as if I paused her – froze her in time for a couple of years – and then I pressed play right where I left off. That’s what it felt like when I recently rekindled things with my former best friend.

And that’s not a good thing. Let me explain.

As she chirped about waiting impatiently for her next paycheck to splurge all of it – no, not a fraction of it – every single last penny of her earnings on a brand spankin’ new Louis Vuitton bag she’s been salivating over, my heart sank. After several years of growing apart, I realized how much I’ve changed and – well – how much she stayed the same.

She and I met at an all-girls Catholic high school in Queens, New York, where we were inseparable. We gabbed about high-end stilettoes, cute senior athletes from neighboring all-boys schools, and the juicy “word on the street” on our fellow classmates.

We continued our friendship as fresh meat at St. John’s University – we were eager to check out all the wild frat parties they warned us about and planned to pledge ourselves into one of the prestigious Divine Nine sororities. But as my finances took a hit toward the end of my freshman year, I could no longer afford to attend St. John’s. So, as a sophomore, I ditched the high-priced private university – and, to my dismay, my best friend as well – to attend a more economical state college.

We fell off and grew apart.

As I transitioned into a new higher-ed institution, my mindset, too, experienced an epic transformation – a shift in perspective for the betterment of my mental well-being.

I no longer gave a flying rat’s butt about Louboutins, designer leather jackets, or silly little boys. The new friends who crowded my social life cloaked me with invaluable knowledge and enlightening novels that heightened my consciousness as a Black woman. I never thought I’d ever stop relaxing my hair, ever, but there I was, burying the box of creamy crack six-feet under – ne’er to be slapped on my head again.

Slaving away in corporate America – once a dream of mine – began to sound like an absolute nightmare. “You mean to tell me my financial security rests at the hands of some prick who’s exchanging my precious time on earth for peanuts? Get the hell out of here!” I thought.

Rocking natural hairstyles and an entrepreneurial mentality, I was no longer the insufferable little high school girl who cared about sh** that did not matter.

Fast forward to the present, and here we are with my ex-best friend. As you might imagine, there were a few variations of “Oh my god! It’s so nice to see you” quips, high-pitched squeals, and nostalgic banter.

But then, as we delved deeper into the conversation, my elation quickly plunged into disillusionment.

“Oh that natural hair thing is really workin’ for you girl,” she said. “And let’s be honest, it don’t be workin’ for everybody! I couldn’t do it. My hair has to be straight at all times. So why bother flat ironing it every day when I can just perm it?”

Pause.

At the risk of this diverging into a totally different conversation, I must point out that this piece isn’t about the “kinks” some Black women still have in their mind about afro-textured hair. This piece is about the former friends we had in our lives that, after “catching up” with them after a few years, we sadly realize still have regressive mentalities from which we’ve grown and evolved.

Play.

So then she continued delving into conversations that no longer interested me:

Oh, she only dates college athletes because they have the potential to become NBA players who can buy her nice things.

Oh, she stopped dating this one guy because he doesn’t wear brand name clothes and shoes.

Oh, she still can’t help but date bad boys and thugs because they get her heart rate going.

As she yapped and yapped, a life lesson slapped me hard in the face right then and there. While I romanticized the fun times I had with my ex-best friend and all the side-splitting laughter and spilling tea about scandalous stories, I always wondered, “Why did we ever stop talking? Why did we grow apart?”

I got my answer.

While some friends fall out due to petty arguments or clawing each other’s eyes out over man, we forget that some friendships disintegrate simply due to the most beautiful blessings that life offers us all: evolving, maturation, progression.

In her world, material luxuries and wealthy lovers were all that mattered. And that’s fine by me, but her insular mentality simply clashed with my thirst for more substance and depth.

If there’s anything I learned about that reconciliation, it’s that it’s okay to leave friends in our past because they may still be in the “pause” position. There is definitely something greater, something inexplicable that is guiding us to hit that fast-forward button for our own flowering and growth.

And sometimes, that means leaving our hindering friends behind to become more well-rounded individuals.

Fast forward.