Date: April 22, 2025
Author: Sarah Moon
I can’t help but feel like a failure these days. I don’t know how to explain it without sounding like I’m just wallowing in self-pity, but honestly, I’m lost. I’ve stopped meeting my friends for the past month, and it’s eating me up. I know they don’t understand, but I can’t help how I feel. I’m 26, a woman, and gay. I’ve recently gone through the most excruciating breakup, one that I’m still trying to fix. I know it’s been a short time, but I can’t get past it. The guilt is overwhelming, and it’s hard to move on when I feel like I ruined something that could have been really special.
I live in a country where I can’t even get married. And maybe that’s part of what’s making everything feel like a slap in the face. It’s hard to see my friends — most of them straight, and already engaged or buying houses — and not feel like I’m falling behind in every way possible. It’s not that I don’t love them, because I do. It’s just that I feel like I don’t belong in their world anymore.
I watch them talk about wedding plans, about housewarming parties, about the life they’re building, and I can’t help but feel small. I’ll never have that with someone like they do. I’ll never get the same privileges or opportunities, and it makes me resent my own existence sometimes. I feel like I’m different, not in the “cool” way, but in the way that isolates me. I can’t even fully be myself here, let alone imagine a future where I can have the things they have.
My friends are wonderful people, and they’ve been supportive in their own way, but there’s a huge disconnect. I don’t think they’ll ever fully understand me, and that hurts more than I’d like to admit. I’m too scared to tell them how I’m feeling because I don’t want to be a burden. But I’m tired of pretending like everything’s fine, pretending I’m okay when I’m drowning in all these thoughts.
It’s so much harder being different. I never signed up for the constant battle of fitting in, of navigating a life that’s so far removed from the one I thought I would have. I’m stuck in a space between my past and the future that seems too distant to even reach. And as much as I try to be there for my friends, I don’t know how to fix myself, so how can I keep up with them?
I haven’t told anyone that I’ve been pulling away because I feel ashamed. I feel like I don’t have the right to take up space in their lives when I can’t even manage my own. I just wish it would all make sense again. But for now, I’ll just keep pulling back and letting the distance grow. Maybe it’s easier this way, or maybe it’s just the only thing I know how to do anymore.
