When Nothing Makes Sense, Wait.

The past few years have been a bit rocky for me ever since the fluoroquinolone reaction nearly took my life. As someone who runs with new experiences and seeks to grow as quickly as possible, I was forced to take a step backwards. I was forced to lay in a bed for four months and avoid any heavy lifting for a year. I was forced to leave the city I called home and take five steps backwards in order to get stronger and maybe take a leap forward? Not sure. What’s next? What’s next? is the question I asked myself over and over for the past 2+ years.

Am I permanently broken?

Despite growing and changing in subtle, internal ways, it still felt stagnant to live with my parents, to stay at my childhood home, to be treated like a child by everyone around me. Nothing seemed to make sense.

I had lost most of my friends from Los Angeles. I had lost most of my friends from college. I had lost most of my friends from the ski resort I worked at for 6 years, from work, from my childhood. I used to have the largest network of people who I loved who had chosen to remove me from their lives (or I them).

Wedding season is weird. Most everyone I was really close with in high school and other parts of life have faded. I feel so left out when my relationships have died with people I was formerly so close to while theirs flourished. Imagine that everyone in your group of friends was still super close years later, except for you? Is it my fault? Is it theirs? Did they only pretend to like me? Is there something wrong with me? I don’t know.

The future is weird. I used to have a very clear idea of what I wanted. I used to have goals and plans and platforms to reach. I knew where I wanted to live and who I wanted to surround my life. I knew what to do… maybe.

Now, I’m lost. I’m stuck. I’m trapped.

Right?

Almost three months ago, I decided to text my ex, a long lost friend, while I was eating at a restaurant he used to manage. Little did I know that right now we would be back together, that we would both be broken in some ways (he has decided that there is nothing wrong with me), and that we would be lifting each other up.

When people fall out of your life, sometimes they come back.

I’m not sure if this is meant to be forever, but it’s definitely meant to be right now. I was so alarmed at how quickly I had lost the people I loved so much, wondering how, and whether it was my fault or theirs. Maybe some people go so they can come back later or maybe they are gone forever.

Death is a weird thing. Sometimes it seems like an everyday, whatever kinda thing and sometimes it’s totally traumatizing. When someone chooses to be dead to you, while they’re alive, it just seems so much worse. Although I haven’t had a lot of experience with death so far, I feel like losing someone I love in life, forever, is so much worse.

It’s also strange in times of social media. A decade back, social media wasn’t a thing (or it was slowly becoming one). Now, I see the lives of people who ghosted me. I get frequent updates about what they are doing and how they live without speaking a single word to them. How strange. It’s also uncouth to remove these people from social media, but why wouldn’t I if I never speak to them in real life? Why should I hold onto these online friendships when every attempt to reach out goes unreturned?

Is there a limit? Should I count how many times I reach out to someone without a response and pick a magic number – maybe 3 ignorances on separate occasions, to cut them out completely?

Or… will they come back? Is this just a hiatus? What if I wanted to text my ex, but I had deleted his number? What if I was in Portland or Denver or wherever and I didn’t have a means to reach out to someone I knew who lived there? Omg, can I just remove all social media and let others decide whether they want to keep me in their lives or not?

So many questions!

So far it seems like maybe what you need will come to you when you need it.. and might I include that I have some pretty incredible people still in my life right now.

I hope you enjoyed this strange, rant-like stream of consciousness writing that is going on right now. It’s essentially just a conglomeration of questions. I wish I had the answers to these questions. I hope I find them someday. I hope I don’t continue to lose my mind and that things will get better. I’m grateful for the people who stick by my side and help me along the way, even if that group of people changes from time to time. Have a rad day, y’all.

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Featured Photo Credit: i-wanna-kiss-u (Tumblr)