Two days ago I received a concise and kind text asking how I was doing. The message came from a dear old friend with whom I have been close for many years, and whose love and care I value and rely on. I still haven’t answered that text, and now I’m writing this personal essay about it instead of just fucking replying to it like a normal person. Here’s why:
The thoughtful text didn’t come out of nowhere; a week before I had spoken to my friend and shared with them a difficult issue I am dealing with in my personal life (involves my boyfriend, a pet cockatiel whose dandruff I’m allergic to, and betrayal, but the details aren’t important). Their text could best be understood as a follow-up to that conversation: A small way of saying, “I’m thinking of you, I’m invested in your happiness, I’d like to be updated on the avian dander betrayal situation.” I read the text literally the moment it was received, and in that moment I thought in my brain exactly what I could say in response, but did not type or send it. I can’t remember what that response was, and now I am writing this 500-word essay.
Also, two days was a lie. After two days, I started thinking about writing this personal essay instead of responding to the text, then I procrastinated that for a while, and it’s now been a God workweek (six days) since I got the text. Wow. That feels good to get off my chest.
If responding to my friend’s text when I received it was an overwhelming prospect, then responding to it now, nine days later, is downright impossible. Not only would I have to answer their original question, I would also have to preface the whole thing with an excuse or apology for my reply being so late. I’ve spent roughly 72 hours thinking about this text, questioning whether this ordeal means that I am a bad person, failing to consider that my friend has a whole life that doesn’t revolve around waiting for me to respond to their text, realizing I don’t know anything about their life now because I can’t ask them any questions before I respond to the fucking text, and now writing this personal essay about it. And that’s basically the situation.
I guess my response might have read, “hanging in there! thank u for thinking of me <3”. Hm. Really makes you think about why we even do this in the first place.
Looking back, what I’ve learned from this experience is absolutely nothing. What could I have done differently? Nobody knows. Maybe I’ll DM them a meme and then we can just start communicating over Instagram and never text again. Maybe I’ll turn this whole fiasco into a painful but necessary off-Broadway play that’s urgently relevant to the times we’re living in. But what I’ll never do is just fucking respond to that fucking text. Cheers!
