Frenemies

When I was younger, I valued my friends more than anything in the world. I didn't care much for family (still don't) because they weren't very receptive to me when I was growing up and I wasn't really all that keen on being ignored anymore. I lived in a shadow of a younger sister who, despite the fact that she was constantly doing stupid shit and getting in trouble, could do no wrong. I turned to my friends to be the people who lifted me up and made me feel less invisible. I used drugs to get out of the slump of shyness and I was successful in making a pretty good group of friends who had a wide array of mental issues and drug problems. But they were my friends and they were there for me.

The older I get, the less I like the company I keep. Granted, they are still the same people, but maybe I am not. We have gotten clean, gotten jobs, and graduated from college (not all of us...ME.) and though we may look like the same people, we are hardly recognizable to one another. I maintained the title of "token virgin" for several years before Jer when everyone else was whoring it up and being irresponsible. I became the girl on the pedestal to some and the ridiculous freak to others...and I didn't care, because I knew that I was smart enough to make the decision when the time was right. Besides, I was so high that I barely noticed guys at that point.

Now I am older, clean and far from the "token virgin" and my friends are jaded and inconsiderate and selfish...and maybe they haven't changed at all, but I have risen above the cloud of pot smoke to a place where people can see again. Maybe I have grown up.

I feel myself drifting away from the people who I once would have jumped in front of a bus for. Some of them have moved away, some of them have become involved in relationships, and some of them have even died...and I am stuck in the middle somewhere trying to figure out where my place actually is. Because I don't feel that it is where I am. I don't feel like continuing friendships that are based on things that happened ten years ago and I don't feel like being treated like I am a child. I don't like where I am and I don't know where I am going.

This adulthood thing? Totally overrated.