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I've been saying this for years

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There is a particular kind of loneliness that is hardest to explain — the loneliness that exists even when you're sitting at the table with your friends.

You're there. Physically present. Smiling, nodding, even laughing sometimes. But as the conversation flows, you begin to hear the gaps — the stories you weren't part of, the jokes built on moments you never witnessed, the memories formed in your absence. They reference conversations they’ve had without you, inside jokes that you don't understand, experiences you never knew happened. And so you sit there, trying to keep your expression light, acting as though it doesn’t sting.

You never say anything. You don’t interrupt or ask for explanations. You pretend it's fine. You don’t want to be the person who seems needy or makes everything about themselves. And so you stay silent, letting the conversations roll over you like waves, each one a small reminder that you were not there — not thought of, not invited, not included.

In those moments, the distance feels sharper than physical separation ever could. It’s not that your friends mean to exclude you, perhaps. Maybe they assume you were busy. Maybe they simply forgot. Or maybe they never even realized you weren’t there. But intention doesn’t change how it feels: like standing just outside a window, looking in.

And still, you carry on. You laugh when appropriate. You engage where you can. You never let them see that quiet ache inside you. You’ve learned to become skilled at hiding it, as though invisibility can be its own kind of armor.

But pretending it doesn't hurt doesn’t make it hurt less.

There’s an exhaustion that comes from being the one who always accepts being on the margins. From being the person who is easy to forget. From always making room for others while wondering if anyone is making room for you.

Maybe one day, you’ll find the kind of friends who notice when you’re missing. Who reach out before the gathering happens, not after the photos are posted. Who carry you in their thoughts, not out of obligation, but because your presence adds something irreplaceable.

Until then, you sit at the table, smiling quietly, carrying both your love for them and your unspoken sadness like stones in your pocket.

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the midwest is so beautiful this time of year…….reblog 2 support our farmers

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— Fyodor Dostoevsky (via lunamonchtuna)

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"I hold longing in my palms" written by me @ily-beyond-measure-carstairs

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Joy Sullivan, from “Culpable”, Instructions for Traveling West

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Nancy Willard, from “Questions My Son Asked Me, Answers I Never Gave Him”

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Simone de Beauvoir, from a diary entry featured in Diary of a Philosophy Student

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Would you like to pet me?

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quick are you mythologizing sex again? are you making it seem like a special category of human behavior rather than just a thing people do? are you forgetting that it can be silly or fun or simply pedestrian? are you forgetting that it requires conversation and negotiation just like every other human activity that involves other people?

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hitting return early on libby when there's people waiting and feeling like a benevolent queen distributing alms to the poor

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Oh ok so it turns out ive been borrowing grief from the future ! it turns out ive been preparing to lose the things i love rather than basking in the light of them while they last. Maybe i should nt do that

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— Richard Siken, Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

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you have to love yourself so much that you become unbothered by the lack of love from others

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Simone de Beauvoir, from a diary entry featured in Diary of a Philosophy Student