Millennial Mid-life Crisis

A very good acquaintance/past boyfriend from high school has literally followed his dream from high school and I’m so stoked for him every time he posts something about it on social media

He wanted to learn how to play bass, so his mom made him start picking out the bass line in songs before she’d get him one. She had gotten him a bass before we had gotten to know each other, but since then I always listen for the bass line when I listen to music.

He wanted to be in the music business since, like forever. The fact that he is is amazing. He posts all these pictures from awesome venues he’s been in, he was at the goddamn Ryman this year and I was so happy and proud for him! I like all his social media things and hope that he sees them and knows I’m truly happy for him.

Bright Eyes - Fevers and Mirrors

I am a really bad friend. Unless someone’s in front of me all the time, my follow through is non-existent.

I met probably my bestest friend that I’ll have ever had in my entire life freshman year of high school. We hit it off right away - she was a friend of a friend, and we very quickly squashed the mutual friend and were basically inseparable. We had almost everything in common (my musical tastes leaned more hardcore and pop punk, hers more radio rock that was popular in the early 00s), shared the same insecurities. We were both introverts who stayed home all weekend and watched Invader Zim together in the phone.

We ended up dating another set of best friends junior year. I had a huge thing for mine for the entire year before, and during the summer started hanging out more and things fell into place. His best friend went to a different school, and they became closer and things fell into place. That summer && the following months were a blast. The four of us did (almost) everything together. My parents with their strict af outlook on parenting, I did miss out on a lot when they would hang out just the three of them, but I was used to it, and always got the recap of the idiot things they did.

While me and my boyfriend broke up by Christmas, she and her boyfriend went strong af. We were all still friends though, I just wasn’t “his girlfriend anymore” (literally nothing else changed, I slept with him constantly for the next two years). We went on our senior beach trip together. The first time I got drunk off margaritas was with them, at her older brothers house who supplied us our supplies.

We graduated, and spent the summer hanging out. I was going one place - she was going another. She and her boyfriend came over the night before I left, and as much of a happy face as I put on, I was so sad to be leaving her behind.

Her mom passed around spring break. I had already planned a trip to go to the other coast with my ***~^stupid ab*s*ve boyfriend who cut me off from all my friends I went to college with~~^***, and knew I couldn’t make it. I was devastated I couldn’t be there for her, but there was no way to cancel this stupid fucking trip without a huge blowout argument, full of threats that I’d be all by myself without him (bc he drove all of my friends off).

Things weren’t the same after that. I didn’t have a car, so that summer was spent in my childhood bedroom, talking to no one bc I had no one left. I didn’t know how to talk to her again without feeling a huge load of guilt on my shoulders, and she didn’t call. We kept up through social media, but never really hung out again.

She got married to her high school sweetheart on their 10th anniversary, in the summer. I hadn’t seen them in so long, and had just finally rid my life of the ^**~~fkface!**~, and was determined to make this friendship work again. I was an adult. I had a car. They didn’t live that far away.

I didn’t talk to her again until our very lame (I cannot believe I even went to this goddamn thing) 10 year high school reunion. She texted me, asking if I was going (of course we still had the same numbers from high school), and I told her I was on the fence but would if she did. We went, it was the lamest thing I’ve ever participated in. They met my now husband, and really liked him. We reminisced about high school, like the time we played strip poker on vacation, and the time her husband gave us a fashion show in some skirt he found lying around the house. We promised to keep in better touch. She went home, I went home.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I haven’t talked to her since, it’s almost been another 10 years. We keep up on social media still - she’s a nurse now, and looks so happy with her nurse friends and they go on fun, adult adventures like baby showers and bridal things. I go on juvenile adventures with my husband and right here friends, and we double-tap each other’s posts.

My best friend in the world is a stranger now. I was convinced that we’d be friends 4eva, be each other’s maids of honor at our weddings, act stupid and do stupid shit together until we were old and gray and senile.

I know that I can reach out, god knows she’s still got the same number from high school (as do I). But I feel an overwhelming feeling of sadness, because I didn’t keep my end of the bargain up. Sure, she didn’t either, but in a way it was my turn to start again, throw the feelers out, reach out more. It was me who said, and I quote, “I fucking miss you, let’s do this more often, not under the guise of a lame ass high school reunion.”

I don’t know if she misses my friendship as much as I do. Probably not, as most normal folks move on with their lives, and I have the said trait I inherited from my mother of constantly thinking over the past, wondering what would have happened if this went this way, or that went that way. I wish this was the only example of my shitty friend-ness, but it’s more of a beginning of a sad road of scorched earth I’ve left behind.

If she texted me tomorrow, I’d be there in a goddamn heartbeat. ❣️

Me and my sophomore year boyfriend’s song. He was the only one I ever had a song with. We’d listen to it on repeat for HOURSSSSS, making out in his room. For Halloween that year, he went to school dressed like Benji Madden, hair spikes and all. We went sledding when it snowed at the park across the street from his house, where I’m pretty sure I broke my pinky finger (still awkwardly bent to this day). I’m fairly, 99% sure he broke up with me because of my controlling parents who wouldn’t let me stay out past 9, or go to shows.

You wrote our names in the new sidewalk they paved by your house. It’s still there, forever emblazoned in our lame hometown, the only evidence left of our 6 month relationship from 2002, until it erodes away and they re-pave, or knock something down for a parking lot or something.

Other songs we played on repeat with no context::

CKY - Disengage the Simulator

The Ataris - Looking Back on Today

Dear Sisqo,

Dear god if anyone ever has your password and sees this, man I’m gonna look like a dipshit 😂

I had this whole notes app thing written out, and had planned on sharing it with fucking DMX of all ppl soon, but somehow in my perpetual idiocy deleted literally every note from my phone🫠 v like me.

You called me….god I think I’m 2019? I was at my husbands fam lake house (his name is Mark Hoppus and you’d definitely pick him over me if this was high school), and for a second I was going to answer it and run outside to see what was up, if everything was okay, etc. but my brain got the best of me and I sent you to vm, and you left me the nicest message of how I had just crossed your mind, and you wanted to call to see how I was doing. I brushed it off like nothing bc tbh I expected to be in ~crappy home town~ any time then, and figured I’d see you at ~*dumb brewery*~

I goddamn wish I had picked up the phone. Idk what was going on, or why you called, but that was my unknown last opportunity to talk to you. To may have a good heart to heart. To be a fucking adult and tell you how shitty of a person I was, and how I regretted forever how I was to you, and how selfish I was that I hoped that it was all in the past and you forgave me or some shit.

My ~anonymous family member~ texted me the day it happened. He works at the *made up job like pizza delivery*, which I think you knew bc you had kept up with him kind of. I cried. I fucking bawled like a bitch. And then felt awful bc I felt that I didn’t deserve to have feelings, bc of the shite teenager I was. But I was torn up. I am torn up. Fuck me man, like I found my fucking live journal of all goddamn things, and even things you told me when we were broken up and barely were friends, you were literally one of the best friends I ever fucking had. And I threw that shit away like fucking garbage bc I was a selfish, no good, self centered bitch.

I didn’t go to your memorial at your house. I wanted to. I basically had gotten ready to leave, and backed out. I honestly didn’t know if I’d be welcome. I know that your family didn’t like me literally at all when we finally broke up (obviously for good reason), and I am a perpetual chicken and didn’t go.

Did you know this is how me, and Jay-Z, and DMX reconnected?! I hadn’t talked to Jay-Z in like, fuck 15 years! And DMX as you know basically hides in the darkness of all social media, so I literally hadn’t seen or talked to him since….fuck. 2013. I think I saw you more recently than DMX. I still haven’t gotten up with him bc life, schedules, whatnot. I mean to get up and fall into misledyouth222- land and just falls to the wayside. As you’re familiar.

I had planned on going to your memorial service. I told Jay-Z and DMX they had to go with me. But —- I felt like I shouldn’t. I still didn’t know if I should bc idk how your fam would take seeing this fucking ghost from the past, and I didn’t think it was the time or place. jay-z understood, as he does.

That morning, I went a show at ~*~crappy dive bar in a new crappy hometown~*~, an acoustic set by && lead singer of Americana band&&. I think you’d have liked them, alt country but damn he has a way with words. He was performing his new album before it was released, playing the songs for ppl for the first time. One of the songs was about a friend he had from high school, whom he had lost. When I tell you that I literally broke down in a goddamn dive bar at 1130 in the morning.

Sisqo. You were one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I definitely took you for granted, and I know that now in my (somewhat) wiser age. You were a friend, good person for life, and I fucked that up supremely. I loved you to death, Sisqo. I did. I was a selfish asshole who deserved the dumb poem you wrote and posted on deviant art that I found sophomore year of college bc I was a goddamn weirdo who googled that and literally, deserved every goddam mean thing you said about me. I hope that somewhere down the line, you forgave me.

The last time I saw you, I was sitting at ~*dumb brewery*~ by myself, trying to hook up with another ex from high school bc I was in a newly single (from that asshole you met with the giant head that I almost married but thank god I didn’t bc he may have been the karma I deserved from being such a fucking dumbass for so long) - I was sitting at the bar, alone, and every time you walked by, you made sure I was okay, gave me your dumb big grin, and when I left you told me to be careful, have fun. I gave you a huge hug. I think we ended things finally on an okay note, kid.

There will always be a little Sisqo-sized hole in my heart for you. You were the nicest, sweetest, most patient person I had ever met. You know the shit I went through with other relationships, and you were always there for me. I’ll love you forever.

Also - Im definitely going to use this as a frame of reference when I finally get up with DMX, bc I had started to talk to him about it via text, and you know him, phone advert, said my nervous breakdown was better suited for in person. 😂 and my idiot self deleted my notes app apology. So this rambling bullshit has to do.

Love you, kid ♥️