19
I picked staying in my hometown over moving to Denver with my best friend
About five years back, my friend got a job offer out there and asked me to come along. The choice was between the comfort of everything I knew here and the big unknown of a new city. I mean, I said I'd go, I was all smiles and 'this is gonna be great' when we talked about it. But honestly, I was scared of leaving my family and starting over from zero. I told her no a week before the move. It went okay at first, but we just slowly stopped talking as much. Now I see her posts with her new crew out there and I just feel this quiet kind of regret, like I missed my shot. I still act happy for her, but it's hard not to wonder what my life would look like now. Has anyone else lost a close friend after making a choice like that?
4 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In4 Comments
linda1142mo ago
Man, that hits close to home. My buddy Jake had the same thing happen with his college roommate. They were gonna move to Chicago together after graduation, but Jake got cold feet and took a job near his parents instead. He said their calls got shorter and shorter, and now the guy's whole feed is just deep-dish pizza and Cubs games with people Jake's never met. Jake says it feels like watching a movie he was supposed to be in, but walked out on. It's a real gut punch.
6
sage_green2mo ago
Deep-dish pizza every single day?
5
daniel14014h ago
Gotta agree with @milam48 though, the real fix is just saying it directly to her. But I've noticed this pattern with people my age - we get so caught up in comparing our lives to the highlight reels online that we forget the friendships we're actually losing. It's like we're so busy watching someone else's story unfold that we don't step back and realize we could still be in it if we picked up the phone. Jake's story is just one more example of how we let distance and awkwardness kill things that meant something real. The gut punch isn't the pizza and Cubs games, it's knowing you could've shown up but didn't.
3