I take a seat at a table with these people I have known since before I even knew myself. Their faces hang like posters in the walls of my mind; their lives are a film I’ve played over and over. Too many cocktails with a side of guacamole and corn chips are on the menu tonight. It’s been a while since we did this. You see, we live in different cities now, and there are babies, new jobs, new boyfriends. We’re all sitting there, at the table, dressed up in our different ways - some to the nines, others casually, but it’s always just worked. This group of people who grew up together. We’ve always worked.
My mind wanders back to the early years; the sleepovers, the bus trips to the mall where we would buy frozen cokes from McDonalds and walk a half marathon within the concrete walls because we had nowhere else to be.
Later, it turned into drunken Saturday nights spent lining up outside the shittest bars and clubs because, you guessed it, we had nowhere else to be - except for maybe going home with a ‘hot guy’ though I always found a reason not to because I was deeply in the closet then - though very well dressed I must say - but that’s a story for another day.
If I were passing by the table tonight, you know as a different version of myself, nothing would look different. Except, it is. One friend is packing up her life and moving to the other side of the world, and another is considering it. I congratulate them for the adventures that await them. I am excited for them, genuinely. But I can’t shake the feeling that I am missing out on something. I don’t know whether I’m mourning the friendships that will inevitably change.
Or the life that I will not lead. Perhaps it is both. I watch a version of myself walk past us and wonder what she would make of it, but she is not me.
The conversation turns to celebrating another year by sharing our highs and lows. I’m in my element. Give me D&M’s all day. One by one, my friends share theirs, and I adjust each of their films accordingly in my mind. My turn approaches, and I get ready to share. My low was breaking up with my girlfriend. My first long-term relationship with a woman. I go to open my mouth and the conversation moves on entirely.
When I said it felt like things were different at the table this time, I thought it was because my friends were gearing up to leave. What I didn’t realise was that it would in fact be me leaving first. Not Ōtautahi - I love this place.
But saying goodbye to these people I have known since before I even knew myself. I didn’t know my low for the year would in fact be feeling completely invisible by people who have known me most of my life.
It is hard to stay sitting at a table when the people you grew up with make you feel like there’s no room for you there anymore. But I do, stay sitting that is. I am not one for confrontation. Instead I watch a version of myself walk past our table, and my mind wanders off with her.
I don’t belong here at this table anymore. And no, it’s not just because these people didn’t ask me about my highs and lows of the year. There’s a distance that has been growing for a while - and it’s not just physical. I am not the same person I once was and nor are they.
I could stick around and learn how to grow alongside them, figure out how to continue squeezing myself into a seat at this table that’s running out of space for me, but I have spent so many years making myself smaller that I no longer have the energy to keep it up.
I get up from my seat and say goodnight to these people. I go and catch up with another version of myself and ask her if she will show me what’s in store next.
Realising that you are outgrowing your childhood friendships hurts. It hurts a lot. We talk so much about romantic relationship breakups, but very rarely do we talk about how the hell to navigate friendship breakups. Offering yourself kindness and compassion is so important - heartbreak is not easy, period. There will be people out there that get you and see you. Hold onto hope that you will find them. In the meantime, I will hold that hope for you.
