After a certain time in my life, I’ve always lived somewhere in the middle. In school, I was never the loudest or the most withdrawn. I was just known. I had people to sit with, people to talk to, but nothing exceeded school borders.
At the end of middle school, I remember my yearbook’s being nearly empty. Apparently I wasn’t the person who came to mind when my 14 year-old classmates thought about who mattered, apparently. I had had solid friend groups for years in that group of people. So, I remember feeling broken seeing my page on the yearbook. I had written cute, customized and kind stuff to people. I remember getting one generic three-word sentence from somebody, along with another generic sentence from the girl sitting next to me at the time. Over time, I learned to keep a safe distance when it came to forming relationships with my classmates. I stopped putting effort into friendships because reaching out felt like masking or overstepping. In high school, people would hold small talk with me but I was usually found weird.
I often felt forgettable until my 3rd year in high school. I transferred schools and I experienced a friendship that felt mutual. Real closeness, built day by day, through shared routines and the comfort of being understood without explanation. It stood out against everything I had taught myself. Even though I had tried to push him away multiple times, I had a shoulder to cry and laugh on at my father’s funeral. I felt like was part of something solid.
That closeness stayed for years. After the university, life built new routines around us. I reverted back to my old routines when it came to relationships. I gave up on the little trying I had been doing. In time, I grew ashamed of thinking about trying. And of course, as one does, in time, he got close with other people, new people that didn’t require as much effort as I did. Because my avoidance when it comes to friendships never transformed into something beautiful. That path led him to new friendships and new best friends to call his own. My closest friend has not been in my life for at least three years. That was dramatic. For at least three years, we have not been in each other’s lives as we used to be.
I continued on doing nothing for so long that his energy, openness, the way he moved and talked around people started to feel almost scary to me. I realized I couldn’t match that energy anymore. I didn’t know how to get in without feeling like I was intruding basically. So, what did I do? I kept on doing absolutely nothing. And I’m not going to use my deadbeat middle school yearbook page to justify my lack of effort in friendships at the ripe age of almost 25 now. I do lack effort in friendships because I simply choose to do so at this point. Though it is evident to me that we’ll never be as close as we once were simply because we are different people now, I know that I still can do something about it.
The grief of it all hits me sometimes. A memory, a rant, a joke I don’t know who to share with. For someone who’s spent most of her life in the background, this kind of loss feels new to me. I should probably explore on this more.
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