Insiders

How should I put it?

You’ve been upstaged. You are no longer relevant. You’ve fallen short; I am uninterested in you; We are finished; You feel toxic to me.

Probably the most genuine way for me to say it would be, “I no longer care, or want to care, about you.”

I find that this little sentiment started becoming a regular feeling beginning in my mid-twenties. Day in and day out, I was realizing that people who I had cared for very deeply were quickly falling into the darkened corners of my mind, only to be accessed when I had nothing more important to think about. I thought it was a phase that could be attributed to the crushing amount of pressure I was under at the time. But here I am, years later, still ready to say “goodbye” to all these previous objects of my affection.

I crave silence. Maybe I want to be completely enveloped in my own loneliness. Somehow I’ve convinced myself that this loneliness is healthy. It has become my most familiar status, and one that I cling to more than I ever imagined I would. Maybe it’s something different than that. At one time, I suspected a quarter life crisis. I even speculated that, as the result of me getting older and experiencing too many life changes in such a short amount of time, my mind had somehow morphed and I didn’t recognize myself anymore. As of today, I think it’s a conglomeration of both of these things.

Before now, I expressed love so freely. I felt it freely. Between my late teens and early twenties, I found the perfect stride of someone who was comfortable. The change didn’t take place suddenly; however, I noticed it suddenly. In this moment, I want to slink away into a safe corner where I don’t have to speak. The only people in this corner would be those who are content to sit there in my silence because they understand it. I can count them on one hand. When they reach out to me, I want to reach back. I always want them close as I wrap myself in a perpetual state of gloom. When they are near, I can overcome it. I am comfortable and eager to engage. They bring out the best in me and their presence encourages me to fight, create, grow, and succeed.  

I’d like to think everyone feels this way. We all have our inner circles, and everyone else sits on the periphery of our lives. These inner circles take years to carefully construct, and there is no heartache like the one felt when we are betrayed by one of the treasured members. The outsiders just create noise. They are commercials or pre-games in our lives, but never the main attractions.

And what about the insiders who, over time, become the monotonous noise we try so eagerly to avoid? It’s a painful goodbye.