Am I the only one who feels like they’re being erased, piece by piece, as their world just… moves on without them? I’m 38, stay-at-home parent, and lately, it feels like I’m watching my own life from behind a sheet of glass. The children grow, that’s a given, but I hadn’t anticipated the collateral damage to my own friendships. I knew playgroup was a temporary ecosystem, but I genuinely thought some of those bonds would stick. Was I just incredibly naïve? It really hit me last week. Sophie, Anya, and Liam’s mum—my people, for the past five years—they all went to the new little cafe that opened downtown. The one we’d all talked about trying, for weeks. I saw their pictures on Instagram, all bright smiles, latte art, and the specific little table by the window we'd picked out together. No invitation. Not even a casual, "Oh, sorry we didn't think to ask, you were probably busy!" Just… nothing. Liam started at a different primary school than my youngest this year, and it feels like that was the official signal for the slow fade. The worst part is, I keep replaying every conversation, every shared laugh, every time I listened to Sophie complain about her husband’s passive-aggression or Anya vent about her MIL. I was there. I offered advice, commiseration, an extra pair of hands when one of their kids was having a meltdown in the soft play. I *invested*. And now, it’s like those years, that intimacy, it just evaporated. Did I do something wrong? Was I too much? Not enough? Or is this just… the way it goes, once the children aren’t physically tethered to the same small patch of carpet anymore? I guess I'm just so angry. At them, for the casual disregard. At myself, for letting myself believe it was real, that it would last. And at the universe, for this cruel, hilarious joke. Here I am, a solo caregiver for my mother, whose memory is getting shakier by the day, whose needs are constant and draining—and my social circle, the one thing that felt like *mine*, has just disintegrated. My siblings are nowhere to be found, naturally. So, yeah, I’m just… here. Alone, effectively. And wondering if I’ll ever feel like a person again, instead of just an extension of someone else’s needs. Anyone else ever feel like they’re in a slow-motion car crash, but they’re the only one who sees the impact coming? And everyone else just sails past, oblivious? It’s a darkly comical situation, really. I find myself laughing out loud sometimes, just at the sheer absurdity of it all, before the lump in my throat gets too big. What a time to be alive, huh? What a time.