Everything is fine

Friendships can be fickle. Sometimes you find yourself cleaning and realize there's no music playing and you've had a whole conversation with people you mean to speak with about the end of your friendship. Over the last year I've met so many new people, and as is with the ebb and flow of life, I've seen people drift off to a place too distant for me to reach. Too distant for me to try to reach for. But still nearly in sight which makes it all the more overwhelming and grief filed. I've always been that hyper co-dependent friend who people pleases under the guise (maybe it's not a guise) of loyalty with zero boundaries. As I learned boundaries after an unusual series of misplaced steps in my very mediocre and average life, I found that the walls went up without hesitation and I shut out those closest to me. Part of that was embarrassment or shame but a good lot of them had pushed a boundary or past a place of comfort that offended and it left me - they left me - alone. Now, I've spent plenty of time in therapy to know when the right time to speak is and to know that feelings are meant to be felt more than shared but the feeling of grief is unrelenting. To have to fall back from who I've known these people to be and push into this new stage in my family life, work life and community life without them, feels uneasy. It feels wrong. I thought about reaching out much like the way things used to be and that also felt wrong. After placing tea bags in rows on a new cabinet that I received, that further validates I was never a sham content creator to begin with, I realized that this new space, this uncomfortable place, may just be acceptance. No phone call needed. No long email to explain why I've dipped out and how they've made mistakes or caused offenses that they don't even know about. No "closure". And this feels very adult. And this moment I sit here and write this out, feels like therapy. Actually this feels like the best kind of therapy- the kind without having to explain with jokes that mask sadness or words left out, and while thoughts are strung together and hang around, this kind of quiet in my head therapy, has lead me to accept the way things have changed and the way things are. I think about the times we spend together because of celebrations, events or a casual run ins and I think of how at the very end of it, as time has whittled away parts of life and so much has changed in our missed seasons, this is the end of an era. We hardly know each other now. Too much time has passed. It feels unsafe. And we've missed too much. And that is very sad.

Now, I realize that one coffee date could probably mend the feeling of overwhelming grief I feel for loss of dear friendships, and please know I am talking about maybe 3-4 people at the moment, it's been a rough two years, but it's unlikely to mend or occur even at all. And, if I'm honest, I have more important things I want to pursue. Maybe it's the work I want to throw myself into or maybe cuddles with babies while I'm available and they still want to stick to me like little pieces of gum but this season feels very different. Very very different.