Disappointment in Your 20s

The saddest thing about all this is really the lack of effort of friends. We all go through hard times. It’s the support system of friends/family that is important to keep us positive and get us through in one piece.

Maybe it’s the disconnection between how we would do things (a version of what we have been taught is the right way to behave and therefore to be expected) and how others around us do things in reality, that is really heartbreaking.

I’ve been talking to this girl about the Rai issue. We started talking when everything was good, both gushing about our respective guys. Now she knows I’ve been crying and not handling this well but trying very hard to keep my chin up. The everyday sequence. Yet now she seems very content going on about her own things. I have had lengthy conversations about her job, her (new) bf, her career choices etc — it’s not like I don’t listen or don’t care. But if you have a friend in a shitty place, shouldn’t you be really wondering how are they when you say “hey how are you?” and not just use that as an opening to talk about yourself for the next few hours?

After a couple of weeks, actually I don’t care much about the nitty gritty details of what’s happening. She’s asking me to help her decide on her stuff. Like input on small things. What should I say, and should I do this…  Sure I want to know what’s happening in my friend’s life, but don’t expect me to be so invested in telling you how to deal with every little thing when you know I am in bad shape.

 

I’ve had friends who I haven’t talked to for years. We’re not close anymore. And if they are in bad enough shape to admit that they feel shitty, I know they need help. I will put in the time and attention to help them. I’ve helped a few get through really bad phases and they have been grateful because we weren’t close at that time. But that’s what friends do. Don’t wait till it’s too late and wish you had done more. When people reach out, listen. Help.

That’s how I do things. So when FRIENDS don’t seem all that bothered, it feels really shitty and disappointing.

The main one being someone who used to be my best friend. We could talk forever. One day she decided to switch posses or something. We had no beef, she just wandered off to some other group despite us still being in the same school and stuff. She could make time for them but not for me. I was extremely patient with this but eventually it got too much and there was distance. That was the roughest period for me and the world seemed awfully lonely from then on. So there. It was a friend and not a boy who really broke my heart.

We still talk sometimes though I tend to hear about 2-years worth of updates in one meeting rather than a minute-by-minute breakdown of exciting things happening in her life, like it used to be. It’s still heartbreaking but I am not quick to anger so I support my friend.

I told her too about Rai. When things hurt bad, she’s still the friend who knew me best so I reach out to her. She passed up meeting me to meet another friend for a ‘maybe we’re having dinner, not sure where’ kind of appointment. Great feeling that is. She asked to meet the next week and I said, I was in REALLY bad shape dude, right then. I was crying on my lunch breaks (and she knows I wasn’t a crier). I needed a friend. She said sorry, you can still whatsapp me.

Uhm, yeah.

Then I met her one day. She squeezed me in and we spoke. She knows how all this is.

She has never called once to check up on me. How could a good friend leave you that way? The only two people who are really being friends, are friends who live very far far away. One is also on a backpacking holiday and I don’t want to ruin her trip with my sob stories.

So that’s the hard part of all this. If I  knew someone was in pain, I’d do my best to care for them.But apparently no one really operates that way after they pass their teens. So the world feels even more and more lonely.

Each day can swing differently. Some days I successfully remind myself of the great things I have, the freedom this gives me to pursue more things for myself, that you can always make new friends, that I am awesome. Other days I wish I had someone to talk to. To freak out with. And know that tomorrow they’d call and say how are you, so I don’t feel like I unloaded on someone who doesn’t care.

I don’t like the days where I am lying in bed crying, wondering how I became this girl, so disillusioned, so hurt, so fragile. In my 20s, I am supposed to be full of life. How am I still so broken by a friend, so bored and wishing there was more happening in my life, so girly that I am crying in bed and thinking about boys?

C’mon 20s. Hit me with the awesome part already.