On Friendship

Social anxiety and making/maintaining friends is one of the bigger struggles in my life, so it's only fitting that I would journal about it frequently. The thing with anxiety and depression is, you never know when you're going to be in a "funk." And when you are, at least for me, it's hard to appreciate or recognize any of my friendships. I become extremely insecure, worry that nobody really likes me, or that I don't add value to any friend group. 

But sometimes, a string of events will happen to pick me up out of my episode and make me realize that I don't have it nearly as bad as I think. 

A few days ago, I went out to dinner with Hannah Nemery. Hannah and I used to be best friends all throughout preschool, elementary, and middle school. She "dumped" me in high school around the same time Julia did. I don't hold any grudges, though, because Hannah was going through a really tough time. She started developing an eating disorder in 8th grade but didn't ever tell any of us. She would barely eat at lunch, and make weird comments about food. The biggest signifier, though, was that she would constantly wear giant dark sweatshirts. Even if it was 100 degrees outside at P.E., Hannah would be wearing her sweatshirt. That's a common symptom of eating disorders; they like to cover their bodies with big, baggy clothes because they don't like how they look. She also developed an unhealthy obsession with getting good grades. Straight A's wasn't enough--she had to get over a 95% in every class for some reason, and would pull all-nighters just to study for a small quiz. 

Anyways, after not seeing each other since high school, we finally met up after three years. I really didn't know what to expect. I was half expecting it to be super awkward and didn't know what we would talk about. But I was pleasantly surprised! Even though she was wearing a sweatshirt, she was at least wearing shorts. Her hair looked a little less frazzled, and she was very bubbly and talkative. We had so much to catch up on and talked for hours. It was actually super fun. She said she had loosened up since high school and tries to "take life less seriously now" (although she still gets straight A's). After I left, I was on a high. I have a new friend now! It happened so quickly but now I feel like there's someone else in my rotation of friends. As I said in my last post, things can change so quickly and you won't even know when they're happening. 

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Tonight, I went to dinner with Jordan Rappaport and Ilana Herman. They're my "fun friends." I like going out with them and talking gossip, boys, and drinking. What I found very interesting during the conversation was that multiple times I would bring up some gossip I had heard from another friend of mine, and Jordan would say, "wow, you talk to everyone. I only have like two friends! People tell you things, like they don't talk to me." It just put things into an interesting perspective, because I worry about not having enough friends while meanwhile, other people think I have so many!

I can barely keep my eyes open so night night!

-Julianna