I've been feeling really old lately... and a little unsure of the direction my life is headed. I guess I always assumed by my late 20s I'd have things figured out a bit more but really I'm just about as lost as I was fresh out of college.
My best friend growing up got married a few weeks ago and the experience really shook me up. Partially because I'm nowhere near getting married myself (not that I ever really thought I'd marry before 30 but I did always think I'd at least have some contenders by this time) and also because it pointed out just how many years have gone by without me really noticing. You move away and you start to lose touch with people, that's just how it is. But how did I manage to go years without being friends with the once closest friend I had? How had it been 3 years since I'd even seen her? How was it that our friendship, once such a solid and important part of who I was, become completely forgotten, as if it never even existed. Here I was at the wedding of someone I really didn't know wondering how I had allowed so many years to simply pass by.
Of course I'm totally to blame in many ways. I've never been good at keeping in touch with people so it was easy to let this friend slide off my radar unintentionally. But it was also more than that because the truth was I had spent most of these years of lost communication angry.
When I moved to New York I struggled for some time. I had a horrible job in film (which I thought was exciting but really was just demoralizing) that left me totally insecure and uncontrollably anxious. It was during this phase in my life that my once best friend decided to cut me off. "We have nothing in common anymore," she told me one day and just stopped speaking to me. Sometime later we became friendly again but it was never the same. I could never forgive her for dropping me when I needed the stable people in my life the most.
My resentment never really went away and when I showed up last month for her wedding I suddenly realized I'd been holding on to this grudge now for 5 years. Of course I wasn't part of the wedding (shocked as old friends and family members were, recalling the 10 years of inseparable friendship), I didn't even know the bride anymore. I knew who she was growing up, but everything I knew was ancient history. And that was a strange feeling.
I never felt so old.
Or lost.
About Me
- allsexandphilosophy
- I am a hopeless romantic disguised as a cynic. I make fun of those in love but wish that someone would love me... Not that i would be able to return that love necessarily. I am convinced that life can work out like the movies and I sometimes make decisions based on what would be the most interesting addition were my life a piece of fictional entertainment. I often tell myself that i am on a quest for a "life less ordinary." I am looking for something different, something new. I have this nasty little habit of over-analyzing ever situation i put myself into. I often wonder if I was born into the wrong soul. I want to be an artist, live like an artist, love like an artist, thrive and yearn and die like an artist but I dont have the talent. Or the courage. Some people think i'm a bitch. I think they just misunderstood. Some people think i am too nice. I think they are too mean. Someday someone will save me from me and will let me save them in return.
2 comments:
I wrote this once: "When you’re young they tell you to make sure that you stop and smell the roses, and for a while that works, but after a certain point there is nothing, save for a long-term disaster like incarceration, or a lingering searing illness, such as leprosy, that can slow down not only the speed of passing time but its smooth acceleration, relentless. Such is its derivative’s curve."
Wow, I'm speechless. You've always had the most incredible way with words and seem to capture the moment. I think this goes without really saying, but YOU helped to shape me in to the person I am today - and without you and you're family I have no idea where I'd be. We may have grown apart --- but you will ALWAYS be my friend!
LYLAS... what?
KjS (I know, "S"!)
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