The Anxiety Diaries, Part 2

I'm at the post office, about to mail a birthday gift to a friend's son. He's turning one in a few days, and with the quarantine, there isn't going to be a party. Such a bummer.

I'm taping up a box I just bought and I'm wondering if there ever was going to be a party in the first place. I know we've been in this quarantine for over a month now, but back in March, before all of this, I never did get any sort of invitation for a party.

So now my brain is telling me: If she was planning a party, you should have gotten something.

"The virus has been going around since December, so maybe she just knew they weren't going to have a party for him. Maybe they were being proactive."

Or, maybe she wasn’t planning on inviting you. Because she doesn’t like you…….

Great. Here we go.

"Why wouldn't she invite me? I was invited the last time there was a first birthday party in her family. I invited her to my son's first birthday, why wouldn't I be invited?"

She's always been looking for an ‘out’ the entire ten years you have been friends. How many times has she done things without you, or bailed on you? And when was the last time she reached out to you on her own, without you initiating the conversation?

I can look on my phone right now and see the text message conversations: An old birthday greeting from me, then a “thank you” from her. (no punctuation, of course, because nothing heightens my anxiety more than text messages without punctuation.) A well wish on her anniversary, a "thanks" from her. Another birthday greeting from me, another “thank you”. A text from me asking how she's doing, followed by "good". A picture of her son ten days after he was born that she only sent to me because I finally texted to ask if she had given birth yet. And again, another birthday text from me and a "thx" in return.

And now, here we are, her son is almost one, and we haven’t talked since a friend’s wedding last fall.

“I mean, I could have been more proactive about reaching out to her.”

You are in the phase of friendship where you only see each other at birthdays, weddings, or some other kind of gathering. You make small talk, bring up the old times, have a laugh or two, but that's it; you are no longer friends that hang out.

My brain is right, and it's insanely painful. What happened to us? We used to have these really fun times together and now we've become "I'll see ya when I see ya" people.

You've become that with a lot of your friends, have you ever noticed?

"No, that can't be right. Not all of them." I search my mental inventory of friends I see on a regular basis, or even at all, and sure enough, nobody comes to mind. "Anyone I don't really talk to a lot anymore is just a result of us all growing up and having a lot more responsibilities in our lives. But, we're still friends. Of course we're still friends."

It could also just be you. People just can't wait to stop talking to you.

My brain is so accusatory. It's hurtful. Why on Earth is my own mind so incredibly mean to me?

I feel completely alone right now. The post office has disappeared around me, and I feel like I'm just standing in darkness. There isn’t a single person I can think of that would call me up, unprovoked and want to make plans with me? What is it about me that drives all of my friends away?

The worst part is, you’ll never get to find out what you did or didn’t do, because if you ask anyone, they’ll be annoyed with you for beating yourself up about it. So, you’ll just keep going out of your way to do or say extra nice things to people in the hopes that you can make up for whatever you think you did to drive them away. Go ahead, mail this stupid gift. See what -if any- praise you receive for it.

I start to think about what's going to happen to this package. Are they even going to open it, or will it just go straight in the trash?

"Why would she throw it away?" I ask myself. That's a stupid thought.

Is it stupid though? She's perfectly capable of just tossing it out because she doesn't want anything you have to give her or her child.

"Why would ANYONE throw a package away if they don't even know what's in it?"

She hates you enough that just seeing your name and return address on the box is enough to act.

Alright, enough is enough. My brain needs a talking-to.

"Stop it," I say out loud. I hope nobody is standing near me right now.

Calmer now, I reason internally: "I've already spent money on this gift, I'm trying to be nice and thoughtful to my friend, so if she doesn't accept it, then that's not my problem. I'm just going to continue to be a good friend."

That sounds good. It sounds like I have this self-help, bright-side positivity thing all figured out. If someone else was saying this to me, I'd feel on top of the world.

But I don’t feel entirely sure I’ve convinced my brain to see my intentions that way.

I stand in front of the package drop box for who knows how long, before a lady behind me asks if I'm in line. I shake my head and drop it in. I’m trembling, knowing that there’s no changing my mind now; It's out of my hands.

I get in my car, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white. I try to take deep breaths, but the thought of being hated so much is still sitting there. It's always going to be sitting there.

As I'm driving away now, completely sad and seeing no way of getting over it, I'm baffled by this emotional roller coaster.

All I wanted to do was show someone I care, and now I've ended up here.