It’s like constantly trying to catch your breath. You feel this unspoken expectation of having to be ‘on’ and ready to entertain. It’s the feeling of never being able to sit quiet without someone thinking you’re upset. It’s consistently being the loud, fun, and energetic person but overtime becomes the demise to your existence.
You become unseen; unknown. You feel that you’ve done a terrible disservice to yourself.
You become accustomed to this being your life and realizing that no one wants anything real and of pure intent with you. You become the light you wish you could experience. You become the friend that no one can be to you. You continue to hope that one day it’ll change but you fear that that one day will never come. You feel forgotten and wonder if there’s something wrong with you, that maybe you’re the problem. You become hurt but with no one to blame for it.
Life becomes harder to navigate. New friendships don’t develop without your initiation and old friendships don’t survive without your initiation. You feel stuck. You begin to wonder what happens if you stop initiating. So you do. You stop. You breathe. You hope. You realize. The communication from both new and old friendships of people you love and care so deeply for goes months with silence. Then you know that it’s you. You hoped it wasn’t. You remember that this isn’t the first time, rather that it’s just an addition to the already existing list.
You’re so used to the one text every six-months of “i miss you, let’s get together soon!” feeling as if you’re simply a “check marks the box” on their Sunday to-do list. Not to your surprise, there is never any action to come of it, but at that moment you hoped the outcome would be different — you begged it would.
It’s not fun being the fun friend, not like you’d think it would be. Not when you become responsible for creating experiences for everyone around you. Not when you’re a friend to everyone and no one is a friend to you.
Here’s to friendships in your twenties. My god, I hope it changes, because dammit amongst all the mess, I can say I deserve it.
Amy Rose
