Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.

I have lost friends, some by death...others by sheer inability to cross the street.

Some things I loved have vanished. A great many others have been given to me

I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be...

At the age of twenty six I am in the condition of an aged person — all my old friends are gone ... & my heart fails when I think by how few ties I hold to the world....

I saw my earlier selves as different people, acquaintances I had outgrown. I wondered how I could ever have been some of them.

I suddenly saw how sad and artificial my life had been during this period, for the loves, friends, habits and pleasures of these years were discarded like badly fitting clothes. I parted from them without pain and all that remained was to wonder that I could have endured them so long.

J'ai perdu ma force et ma vie,
Et mes amis et ma gaieté;
J'ai perdu jusqu'à la fierté
Qui faisait croire à mon génie.

Quand j'ai connu la Vérité,
J'ai cru que c'était une amie ;
Quand je l'ai comprise et sentie,
J'en étais déjà dégoûté.

Et pourtant elle est éternelle,
Et ceux qui se sont passés d'elle
Ici-bas ont tout ignoré.

Dieu parle, il faut qu'on lui réponde.
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde
Est d'avoir quelquefois pleuré.

I've witnessed, incognito, the gradual collapse of my life, the slow foundering of all I wanted to be. I can say, with a truth that needs no flowers to show it's dead, that there's nothing I've wanted - and nothing in which I've placed, even for a moment, the dream of only that moment - that hasn't disintegrated below my windows like a clod of dirt that resembled stone until it fell from a flowerpot on a high balcony. It would even seem that Fate has always tried to make me love or want things just so that it could show me, on the very next day, that I didn't have and could never have them.

A tiny bit of myself is lost when my friends are gone. A tiny bit of myself was lost when my brothers, all but one, passed away.

Somewhere I lost whatever else I had.

Among the worst things about growing old is the loss of those irreplaceable friends who added richness and depth to your life.

I've lost over twenty friends [to AIDS]. I've seen a world vanish-a culture that has been oppressed in one generation, liberated in the nest, and wiped out in the next.

Often times, the death of old friendships is framed through the lens of failure. It may actually be a sign of your growth and recognition of old relationships holding you back. Not all friendships are supposed to last a lifetime.