I don’t know if this even counts as a confession, really. More like... just something I needed to get out, I guess. I think maybe I’m really angry. I don't know who at. Probably myself. It’s about my friends, I suppose. My college friends. We used to be so close, you know? Like, the kind of close where you thought it would be forever. We lived together for a bit after graduation, squeezed into that tiny apartment in the city, making plans for all the things we’d do. And then I moved back home. To the country. For that thing. It felt like the right move at the time. Everyone here was so excited for me. My parents, my old teachers, people at the grocery store. They all said it was such a GOOD opportunity, and it was, I suppose. For that particular thing. And now... well, now I’m thirty-two. And I have a kid. A toddler, actually. Who is wonderful, obviously. The best. But sometimes... sometimes I feel like I’m screaming into a void. I try to keep up with them, you know? With the old group. I send texts. Group texts, mostly, because it feels like less pressure on any one person. A funny meme I saw, a picture of my little one doing something ridiculous, an article I thought they’d find interesting, a link to something that reminded me of our old inside jokes. Nothing too demanding. Just... a little flicker, to let them know I’m still here. Still think of them. And I see them. On that one app. I see their posts. They’re all having babies now too, or they just bought houses, or they’re doing these amazing things with their careers. And I'm happy for them, genuinely. I hit the heart reaction, I type out a little comment. "So happy for you!" or "Look at that little cutie!" I try to be present for them. But when I send a text... nothing. Or maybe, sometimes, one of them will respond. With a single emoji. Or a "lol." Or "cute!" Like a week later. And then the conversation just dies. And I see that they've all been talking in other groups, or commenting on each other's individual posts. Like, I’ll see one of them tag another in a meme, or respond to something really quickly. And it just feels... pointed, somehow. Like I’m being screened out. Or like I’m not worth the effort of a full sentence anymore. I remember this one time, maybe a few months ago. I’d had a particularly rough week. My little one was sick, I hadn't slept, and that thing at work was just... overwhelming. I typed out this long, rambling text to the group, mostly just trying to vent a little. Not even really asking for advice, just wanting to feel heard. I talked about how lonely it felt sometimes, being out here, away from everything. I even put in a little joke at the end, to lighten it up. And I waited. And waited. For two days. And then, finally, someone replied. Not with anything about what I’d said, just a picture of their new puppy. And everyone else jumped on that immediately. "OMG SO CUTE!" "WHAT'S ITS NAME?!" I just stared at my phone. I didn't even respond. I couldn't. And that’s when it hit me. Like, really hit me. They’re all just... absorbed. In their own lives. Their own new families. And I’m just... not part of that anymore. I think maybe I’m the weird one. The one who moved away, the one who doesn't live in the city, the one who works at that place in the middle of nowhere. It feels like I’m invisible to them now. Like I’m just a ghost from a past life that they occasionally remember with a vague sense of nostalgia. And I get it, I do. Life gets busy. People change. But it still feels like a punch to the gut every time I send something out and it just lands in a silence. Or gets a perfunctory emoji. It makes me feel... small. Like my life isn't interesting enough. Or like I’m not interesting enough. And then I get angry at myself for even caring. Like, why am I still trying? Why am I still holding onto this idea of us, when they clearly aren't? It just makes me wonder if I’m doing something wrong. If there’s some secret code to being a thirty-something mom friend that I just haven't figured out yet. Or if this is just... how it is now. And that thought, that this is just it, for good, makes me feel a kind of sadness that I haven’t really known how to deal with. It's a hollow kind of ache. And I don’t know what to do about it. Or if there’s anything *to* do about it. It just IS. And I hate it.