I have moved to a different city from where I grew up - it’s been a few years now.
when I fist left, I regularly went back and I would always make the effort to see my friends, as the years have gone on and everyone has different things going on it’s not as frequent. Sometimes I would go home and only see my family. I have a handful of friends from school who I still keep up with, we message, phone and see each other when we can. They mean a lot to me so I always try to make time and effort for them.
I had one friend from secondary school who growing up we lived in each others pockets, knew each others families well etc… it feels as though we have been growing apart for a long time. Our lives have gone in different directions but even before that, it almost felt that we were still friends out of duty to each other. This friend came and stayed with me a few years ago and it was one of the worst weekends I have had. She moaned about everything and all in all it was really hard work. Anyway, just before the pandemic, she had a bit of a breakdown, she seemed counselling, she was open with me and I spent endless amounts of times cheering her on, phoning and being her support. Things also drastically changed for me in the pandemic and she just didn’t seem to be able to care. I put it down to her own problems at the time. Since then she has seemed to do much better and has a lot more confidence than ever before. She is always going out with a load of friends and her job is also quite social. Since the pandemic I have had a child and lost a my mum and throughout it all she has not really been there for me at all. I haven’t even been messaging her much so it’s not like anyone could say I was bothering her. I used to message when I was going back home and most of the time she wouldn’t respond. But I felt a need to not let her down and let her know I was thinking about her. She used to invite me to her birthday each year but this year she hasn’t. This is silly of me because I haven’t been able to go to her birthday for about 3 years now. She has missed some important events for me, I invited her up with a lot of others, on the day she rang and said she couldn’t make it because an accident had happened on the motorway. Tbh I felt relieved. But I also felt she was lying. When my mum died she didn’t come to the funeral she saw me about twice since then, and I know if it was the other way around I would have been a much better support to her. I find it awkward as we grew up together so closing this chapter feels really sad. It also doesn’t help having SM as I feel you keep up with people who you wouldn’t have done with before. I feel really low about this and it’s made me question the meaning of friendships / todays lifestyle. I don’t feel I fit in with the way the world is today and I find the stress of all these relationships too much.