Everyone is allowed one excruciatingly embarrassing moment in their lives, one so out of character that it doesn’t actually even count as something you did. Mine occurred on a random Tuesday night in the spring of twenty two right before a very important set of exams. I genuinely still do not understand why and how I was screaming, crying, kicking up a fuss over somebody I LITERALLY DID NOT KNOW when I had four whole papers to worry about. It was also uncharacteristic because I have always preferred the Irish exit, always the first one out of the door. So I literally still to this day don’t know what’s possessed me to act like that at big age of twenty year old sat in my high school bedroom. It is a really good giggle now but this wasn’t deep enough to warrant the reaction it did. But in hindsight, the reason I was hysterical because it was historical. I was sitting on a nuclear arsenal that was a culmination of all the times things were that deep but I let it go. I didn’t know we could just talk about it. I wasn’t supposed to know this, I hadn’t been to therapy yet.
I had just lost a friend, it was my fault and I couldn’t figure out why. I had just gotten my dad back (that’s a story for another day), and I didn’t know how to feel. Deep inside my bones, I was drowning because I had poor communication skills and I didn’t know how to let people back in. I didn’t have that recipe yet. The reason I had poor communication skills is because I rejected feedback and couldn’t fathom someone could think I did something wrong, because why would they want me around then? A lack of self esteem would do that to you. The reason I didn’t know how to feel is because I never stopped to think or feel because that would be too painful. So yes the Irish exit served me really well, until someone who cared enough about me had the balls to sit me down and gave me an earful. It didn’t go very well at the time, because then we weren’t friends anymore for minute. But that was a catalyst for a chain of events that really clicked my brain into place.
The reason I bring this up is I had a really hard conversation recently, one I didn’t think was my responsibility to have, but someone had to do it and it wasn’t going to be the other person, when they’ve had plenty of opportunities to do so and they chose not to. I understand we’re humans so we make mistakes that may sometimes hurt the people we love, but I can’t imagine a world where I knew something I did was going to hurt somebody I loved and did it anyways. I wouldn’t even do that to a stranger, on sheer principle. But that is what happened and that wasn’t okay with me.
The callousness and apathy with which they approached the conversation when I expressed I was hurt, bothered me enough to check out. Unlike them I couldn’t just pretend like things were fine. I also didn’t entertain their half ass attempt at putting a bandaid over a bullet wound. Disrespectfully, do better. If we were to fix things it couldn’t come from me, because I wasn’t the one to break things. At some point over the course of the year, they stopped being present and showing up, which is literally the bare minimum. When I addressed it, we spoke through it and I thought we were fine. It had been a difficult year for me, so I didn’t want to add this to the pile of things I needed to worry about. As I mentioned, I thought we were fine but then one fine summer day, they did something that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was absolutely devastating, and I just couldn’t let it slide, I shouldn’t have to. The whole time, I just kept waiting on them to bring it up and acknowledge their decisions. This person was one of the people who taught me how important it is to be present, and then they had stopped. It’s literally the bare minimum, so I wasn’t okay with that. And whilst, I can’t control people’s actions, I can control whether they have access to me or not. Which I decided in that in moment that they would not until they fixed it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want this person in my life anymore, I did, but I don’t want people in my life who aren’t actively making the choice to be there everyday. You can absolutely love somebody in the deepest parts of your bones and yet leave them because they can’t meet you where you are. Trust me when I say, when people want you in their lives they don’t put themselves in the position to lose you. As I have said a million times before, there is enough love to go around you don’t have to go chasing it. This applies to all sorts of relationships across the board: platonic, romantic and otherwise.
Not everybody needs an exit interview but also just because something isn’t meant to last through breaks ups, birthdays and babies doesn’t mean it has to end in vitriol. I don’t care to hold onto that. This is a person who will continue being in my orbit, so I deemed it necessary for me to organise my thoughts. Back in my therapy days, one of the exercises I had to work through were writing letters to people who were the source of my traumas from way back in my past. Even though according to my therapist these letters weren’t meant to be sent, I did email a couple out because if we were to coexist, I believe we need to mutually acknowledge the past before we can move on. So I gathered my thoughts behind the safety of my notes app, meticulously dating and evidencing the validity of my case for own sanity, and sent it off.
I wasn’t expecting to a rebuttal because this had been dead and gone and buried for a while now. I hadn’t spoken to this person in months. There wasn’t even a “happy birthday”, which isn’t the end of the world but it was a choice that spoke a whole lot louder than anything they could have said.
I was slightly dumbfounded by what I heard back though. Whilst there was an apology, this was laced with an admission of a quiet resentment that basically lasted the entire time we were in each others lives. The only one incident they could bring up was from two years ago, something that could have been addressed right there and then especially because we would regularly pulse checked with each other. I thought we were great at communicating because I was now great at communicating. I operate under the assumption that everything is right unless you tell me otherwise, that is the rational thing to do. The only other thing brought up, which I think is categorically untrue, was my unavailability. They felt like they couldn’t just pick up the phone and call me because I hadn’t picked up when they called. To say that to someone you spoke to everyday across multiple platforms is in my opinion rather ridiculous.
Of course I went back and got receipts, there were two missed calls over the course of the whole year, because I always pick up when people call. Whether I am in the cinema or asleep at three in the morning, because it is literally the bare minimum. We would see each other once every couple of weeks, because I would initiate those plans each time I was back home. Am I incredibly busy and am doing twenty thousands things at all times? Yes, but do I also carve out time to present in my people’s lives? Yes. Literally ask any of my friends. But it doesn’t matter, that was their reality.
Which is rather upsetting to think how someone can feel so lonely, that they stayed being resentful for so long, in so much pain. It makes me think the whole reason this friendship lasted for as long as it did was because I held onto it, and it died the moment I was done. Were they lying the whole time? I just don’t understand how someone can stay somewhere they don’t feel loved for years? And it wasn’t that I didn’t love this person, but they didn’t feel loved, so why stick around and harbour resentment, for years? That doesn’t sound like a very nice feeling. I wouldn’t know because I can’t be in a place I don’t feel an abundance of love. That would so disrespectful to myself and the people who love me. Because respectfully, what the actual fuck! But I digress, we spoke like mature adults, we are not going to be in each others lives, but there is no bad blood, everybody has moved on.
The conversation did make me wonder though why don’t people feel like they can’t express their feelings to the people closest to them? Have we really been gaslit into not feeling like we can tell people how we really feel? Or is it that when we were little the adults in our lives failed to teach us that are emotions regardless of the good or the bad are valid? This is a frequent point of contention between my mother and I, because she can’t for the life of her understand that parents are meant to teach their children how to self regulate themselves. Anytime she is expressing how frustrated she is with my brother (he is going through the terrible teens) I am quick to remind her of this. You can’t just pop kids and expect them to stumble through life, as a parent it is literally your job to teach them how to navigate life. Being an instruction manual for adulthood is literally what your parent’s have signed up to do for the first eighteen years of your life. Yet so many of us have grown up with emotionally neglectful parents.
You don’t want to admit that, but it’s okay too. I don’t love my parents any less because they didn’t always know how to parent. I turned out relatively okay. Sure I didn’t much of a self esteem for the first twenty years of my life, but a little therapy and medication did wonders for that. Take it from someone who has seen both sides, but life gets a whole lot better when you know and love yourself.
I look back at the situation above and can’t help but be proud of myself for handling the way I did, because I would have sat and stewed in my misery and let it eat me alive just a couple of years ago. But like now I know this entire incident had nothing to do with me. Another thing to remember, how people treat you usually says little about you and more about them. Pay attention to how people speak about others. In hindsight there were so many signs like when would admit to their jealousy with their other friends which was weird, I don’t feel that way about my friends. Or make comments letting people know they deleted playlists made for them but I would ignore these because it wasn’t the biggest deal. But I should have called those out, because why do feel like you need to verbalise those thought? Why do you even have those thoughts?
The words of wisdom I have for you is to call people out even when their words or actions don’t affect you, oh my god call them out on their shit early. I am literally Bob the Builder, I am so good at fixing things whether it’s excel formulas, broken hearts or that friendship with the friend at the start I had lost but even I can’t fix things that are broken in its foundation. There was a whole parallel reality playing out I had no idea existed and whilst I don’t particularly want to fix this, this wasn’t on me.
I will also say stop accepting the bare minimum, I scream this at my friends all the time, but it is a privilege to be in your life, so let people earn the right to be there. I am so grateful for the people who I get to keep in my life, and apparently I am a hippie for saying I am grateful for their existence, but I am. In the clusterfuck of the year that was 2024, it was quite literally the people in my life who unbeknownst to themselves made sure I didn’t sink and drown and die. I have had an abundance of love cocoon me in moments I didn’t even know I needed it. Yes a shit ton of bad things happened and yes I lost a person who was supposed to be in my life forever but it wasn’t the end of the world.
I can’t bring myself to be upset about the bad things or the love lost because otherwise we wouldn’t be here right now, and I love life my right now. I have so much love in my life. And I got the breathe the same air Taylor Swift this year, twice. I used to be so afraid of not being hold on to people because I am constantly on the go but as a wise woman (Taylor Swift duh) has famously said the trick to holding has always been the ability to let go. Letting go of things and people and ideas and feelings that don’t serve you anymore to hold space (I don’t want to hear any Wicked jokes) for the people who deserve you.
Letting go is hard, yes, but not when you know you deserve so much more. Respect yourself enough to only have the people in your life who are actively making the choice to be there, because that is literally the bare minimum. And if they are not, they don’t get to be in your life, there is always enough love to go around you don’t ever have to go chasing it.
So love your loves loudly, do not be nonchalant, cold or distant. That is not cool, be nice to people, please, it is literally the bare minimum. Oh and if someone asks you to let them love you, you should, because you deserve it. Okay that is all the words of waffle I have got for you before EoY, tell me if you find typos, or just write me back in case I have or haven’t heard from you in a while.
Merry Christmas my love, I love you so dearly thank you for existing.
Love yourself,
Nashrah xo
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