November
Every now and then, I feel like there are words stuck in my throat words I don’t know how to spit out. Words about how wrong of a person I think I am, about how many flaws I have. I think the trajectory of my life changed in 2019. Ever since then, I don’t think I’ve ever been the same. That version of myself died in 2020. She was the one who was supposed to be living this life. She had more life in her than I do now. I just feel hollow, like I’m an empty shell grasping for another day to live, grasping for the person I once was, and for whatever little confidence I still have in myself.
I think life is pretty funny. The people I thought would still be in my life now aren’t. The people who once knew my soul, my heart, the people I once kept so close the people whose bonds I thought were sacred they’re not here anymore. And I think what’s worse is that they didn’t leave. I did. I went away. I left.
I keep thinking to myself, did I misjudge everything? Maybe I should have swallowed my feelings and pushed through. Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to myself. Maybe I should have stayed.
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She was my best friend. I don’t really know anything about her anymore. I don’t know a thing about her, and she doesn’t know anything about me either. Is this just what growing up is? I miss her a lot. I miss the humor we used to share. I miss how we once felt like the same person, inseparable, like she was literally half of my soul. No one else understood me the way she did, and I like to think that no one understood her the way I did either.
Now, we’re standing across from each other. What’s left of us is nothing more than a ghost of the past the similarities we once shared, the people we once were. I don’t think we know each other anymore. I don’t think we’re the same people we used to be.
No one told me that growing up would hurt this much. No one told me that growing up meant changing, that moving forward would mean letting go of so many of the things you love. I think there are things in my life that I’ve held onto too tightly for too long, until they slowly faded away in my hands.
Maybe I need to let them go.
