My Green Eyes

“I am not falling behind or running late.”

- Lin-Manuel Miranda

From day one, I’d always been a step ahead of her. In age (6 months) school (one year) to being the first to leave our college town, secure a full time job and find financial stability. It felt familiar as I had two younger sisters at home and she was the youngest in her family; it seemed these were the roles we fell into naturally.

I met her my junior year of college when I was a fresh 20 year old returning to school from a summer back home. The two years I’d spent as her college roommate were just the beginning as she became one of my closest friends. She got me through my first college heart break after finding me in bed eating ice cream surrounded by tissues. She got my weird and she got me and any time she was around the event, no matter how insignificant, was just better.

We took turns falling in and out of infatuation with different boys, and I eventually found the man I thought I was going to marry and embarked on a journey of firsts with him. For our two year anniversary we looked at rings. About the time I was waiting for the question that would change not only my last name, but the rest of my life, she met the man who would change hers.

It would be the last time she’d be a step behind. As my relationship ended, hers thrived. And in the race we were running only in my mind, in my world of comparisons, I was suddenly surpassed as she experienced getting engaged, her father giving her away, moving in with a boy, and starting her life as the best version of herself I’d seen in our years of friendship.

For nearly a decade I’ve watched her move forward and learn and grow in ways I didn’t get to. While she embraced marriage, miscarriages and childbirth, I seemed to be standing still - my feet feeling planted in a similar space to where they’d been when we first met in college.

I am happy for her. I truly am. But there’s this part of me that can’t help feeling like we were on this journey together. Searching for the same thing together for so long. We broke at different times but she hadn’t figured it out as much as I hadn’t. I didn’t realize the comfort I took in that until she found her husband within months of me saying goodbye to the man I thought would be mine.

While I can recognize that I grew in different ways, ways she doesn’t get to, it was hard not to feel distance and disconnect as she figured out the next stages of her life without me. I could no longer understand or connect with her the way she did with her friends at the same point in their lives. My struggles were different. How I filled my time was different. 

As I watched her belly swell a second time I felt genuine happiness for her but also a longing for myself. I believe the two can coexist together. I watch others living a life similar to hers, but it doesn’t affect me the same way when I see her photos or watch her life being lived miles away from me.

I know we’ll always remain friends, but experiencing pregnancy together or toddler play dates is likely not in the cards for us. While motherhood has opened her eyes to how selfish she once was, she has shared, I can’t help but watch my life continue to star only myself. And my efforts seems to garner only bad Bumble dates and sparks of interest that fade within a few weeks.

I love my friend dearly. I am grateful for the space she creates for me.  And while my journey feels delayed in comparison to hers, maybe one day I’ll experience the things she has and she can lead the way for me. Or maybe I’ll realize there’s no race, no comparison to be made, but just a friendship I’m lucky to have.

I share this in hopes not of feeling shame or being shamed. But as someone who has spent more than three and a half decades watching so many seem to move past her, it’s hard not to sit with insecurity at times. While one could call it being jealous of her, it feels more like an aching for myself. For feeling left behind and powerless to move forward in the ways I dreamed I would since I was a child.

It is my reality that there will be moments where I am consumed by joy and light and without warning, a comment summons a deep rooted insecurity; their words stealing that happiness so quickly I struggle to process what triggered it. Where the rush of emotion came from or how that defensiveness crept in.

It's a reaction that makes me feel messy, my cracks deep and exposed, creating a greater separation between where I stand and where I want to be.

In "The Fault in Our Stars" John Green stated that pain demands to be felt. And I agree with his words.

 But no one ever said it has to be felt alone.

For those who have struggled to watch from the sidelines, or felt left behind or overshadowed, or simply need to sit with insecurity or sadness, you are not alone. Regardless of whether this is where you want to be, maybe it’s exactly where you are suppose to be.

And we are here beside you.