I remember the first time I realized it. Not really realized, like, fully *understood* it in my bones. It was a Tuesday, late, little man finally asleep after battling me for an hour over a pull-up, and I’d just fired off some group text – probably a meme, or a funny thing the kid said, something that used to spark a quick firestorm of laughing emojis and ‘OMG me too!’ from the girls. Crickets. Hours later, still crickets. I scrolled back, looking at the last few months of our chat, and it was mostly just… me. A steady drip of my life, my jokes, my attempts at connection, met with a trickle of 'likes' or a single word response days later. Like I was yelling into a well and hearing my own echo bounce back, fainter each time. It’s not even that I’m mad, not really. More like… a dull ache. Like when you realize your favorite shirt doesn’t fit anymore, but you still keep trying to squeeze into it because you loved it so much. Our lives just… veered. They’re all knee-deep in toddler groups and school runs, bigger houses, maybe even a second on the way. Meanwhile, I’m still figuring out how to make rent stretch to the end of the month, debating if I can afford that extra half-day at daycare so I can actually *think* at work. My problems feel… smaller, I guess, or just different. Like they’re talking about which organic baby food delivery service to use and I’m just trying to remember to buy formula on sale. There's no common ground anymore, just a widening gap. Sometimes I think about those college nights, all of us crammed into my tiny dorm room, sharing secrets and dreams, swearing we’d always be there for each other. We were so sure. Now, I see their perfect family photos on Insta, smiling, sun-drenched, and I just… scroll past. There’s no bitterness, just a quiet understanding that the threads that tied us together have frayed, one by one, until there’s nothing left but a loose knot that I keep trying to pick at. It's a lonely feeling, watching the boat sail away, knowing you’re still standing on the shore, watching the waves.