friends – The philosophical one

Where do I even begin, well this happened when I was in the 10 grade. Our school took us to an amusement park for picnic. People who know me, know that I am a scaredy cat and I am anything but adventurous, naturally I am terrified of rollercoasters. Although I haven’t actually sat on a rollercoaster before.

Pretty much every ride in the park seemed dangerous to me. I didn’t want to get on anything. But my friends somehow coaxed me to get on a rollercoaster, because they didn’t want me to sit alone when they were all having fun. So I was like fair enough, maybe I shouldn’t give into my fears and for once live a little.

So I agreed and stood in line with them, it wasn’t really long line so we got in pretty quickly. The thing is that it was the fastest rollercoaster in that park, and I had absolutely no idea about it.

We were the first ones in the second batch so we got to sit on the front seat, can you imagine being afraid of rollercoasters and sitting on the front seat, well that’s a recipe for disaster. As the rollercoaster began moving upwards I could feel a pit in my stomach. I could already feel that it was a bad idea. The coaster kept going up and up and up. Then it reached the highest point.

Wooshh! It went downwards in a blink of an eye, then sideways, then upside down and then up again. I felt like I was in a huge washing machine. My head was spinning, heart was racing my life up until then flashed before me. I thought I was dead to be honest. I don’t remember anything after that.

When the ride got over the staff unbuckled us and we had to leave but I was not getting up and my friends freaked out, one of them really thought I was dead and started to cry. After vigorously shaking me some more times, I woke up. Phew, everyone was relieved and we had a group hug moved out of the way for other people, who seemed to be genuinely concerned. Well after that we went in for less scary rides.

It was the most exciting at same time terrifying thing I have ever experienced. But now, let’s just say I don’t do rollercoasters anymore.

I was going through some of the old chats in my phone and I realized I haven’t been in touch with my high school friends for months now. We used to be inseparable in school. We did everything together, learned about new stuff, great experiences, went through puberty, being each other’s cheerleaders, I mean we’ve been through a lot of shit together. But now even starting a conversation with them is a little awkward.

I get it that we chose different paths after school, but I always pictured us to maintain the BFF (Best Friends Forever) bond that we always bragged about.

I don’t know if it’s relatable but it really hurts to see people that were once so important to me, doing just fine without me. It made me question my worth, like am I that replaceable?

It took me a while to adjust in college, meeting new people & socializing just fueled my social anxiety. As you get older, making friends becomes significantly difficult at least that was my experience.

While I was struggling in college, my friend’s instagram stories made it worse and I felt left out. Well I’ll admit I was being childish and was most certainly projecting my fears. But these rational thoughts didn’t help me feel any better.

I was happy for them, but I feared that we’d drift apart. And my fears came true. In the beginning we’d update about our respective lives on our group chat, gradually it started to reduce, we’d text regularly but not as much. We planned to meet at least once in 2 months since we are in the same city, well that reduced to meeting on each other’s birthday.

Well now we don’t really meet on birthdays either, but do text each other sometimes.

I have accepted that this is life, it’s about my journey. I am grateful that I met them, things they taught me, the memories we made. All that helped me evolve as a person.

But it also taught me that relationships have to flow naturally, I cannot hold on to something just because we have history. They were a part of my childhood, it was beautiful but then we grew up and that’s how it is.

There’s no love lost though, even if we aren’t in contact as much I still do love them but I have to let go.

Tag: friends

Storytime: I passed out during a rollercoaster ride and my friends thought I was dead!

The closure I needed but never got