Member-only story
Why I Stopped Making Cameo Appearances in Other People’s Lives
Friendship Doesn’t Owe You Forever
It took me far too long to learn how to leave quietly.
I used to think I was being generous — showing up for people who no longer showed up for me. Keeping the thread alive. Reaching out, replying, reminding. I thought it meant I was the bigger person, that I understood something about loyalty or history or forgiveness.
But that wasn’t it.
Not for me.
Not for any of us.
We tell ourselves we’re just checking in, making sure the past still has a pulse. But really, we’re inserting ourselves into a narrative where we no longer belong. We become actors who wander back on stage after their exit, searching for the spotlight, grasping for a line that was never theirs.
The audience doesn’t cheer.
If anything, they cringe.
I’ve had friends whose lives turned upward in ways mine didn’t. They hit a stride while I stumbled. They married, had children, built careers, and my instinct was to knock on the glass every now and then, just to remind them I was still there.
What I didn’t see was that my knock was more about me than them.
