From your post, it does sound like you recognized that this best-friend, life-long friendship was founded on shaky ground from the both of you. With all of the variables such as personality differences, communication styles, life changes it doesn't sound like this was ever meant to be a life-long friendship. However, during those 14 years knowing her, you learned a lot about yourself. So, in essence, you didn't waste 14 years of your life because you became who you are truly meant to be, because of the influence (negative and positive) that she had on your life. You learned what your triggers are, what your boundaries are, what your true sexuality identity is, and what your goals and motivations are in life because you knew her. So, she taught you you to connect with yourself in that way.

In hindsight, I believe that my most toxic relationships with people in my life have taught me those things, when I look to the past in times of loneliness, about my social network. I realize what my contribution was to those toxic connections and why I allowed each one to subsist as long as they did, before I or the other person ended the connection.

Grief is an ongoing process for every single relationship and experience that we have, that ends in a way that hurts us at the time. From reading your venting post, it sounds to me like you're currently experiencing one of the stages of grief right now, years later, to process something about the relationship that you hadn't processed yet. I think that's why retrospect occurs - retrospection is triggered when there is something we haven't emotionally processed yet, that we need to process emotionally and intellectually before we stop letting it haunt us. I hope that's what this venting post has done for you today.