You are here and simultaneously nowhere. This is where you are not.
Not in this vista, on this rooftop, in this foreign country, or your very own city, with these people. This one is with that one, the people you introduced, the people you forgot about, the ones you still long for.
Today, you feel the smart of not having a table number, not being at karaoke, not buzzed on cocktails splayed across a couch, not arms around each other, not laughing hysterically while the person taking the picture tries in vain to get a good picture of all of you.
You are not an infant. You tell yourself how expensive weddings are, how this is an exception, how people are busy, how not everyone can be included, how sometimes almost no one is included.
You allow yourself no self pity because that is a waste of time and make an inventory of your better friends.
You don't linger there. You like them anyway. Or not.
But there's this one time. You wade further in for some reason. You let the sting sting you longer. You sit with it.
You learn that the blue cast isn't the end of the world. Nobody will throw you in jail for feeling sad.
You remember the work of Margaret Mead. Like it or not, you're a primate. You're part of something bigger than you. Of course you feel bad. It's how you've been made.
You're with a friend in her sunny loft. She takes a quick break from the conversation to return a text. Her other friend does the same. You take a fast look at social media. Just for a moment.
You see what you see there. And you're not there.
You are not with those people because you are with these people. You are not in those places because you are in this place.
Not to mention the people who you will see later today, not talk with but text, the strangers on the train, the loved ones, the future friends, the friends reconnected.
You're with who you're supposed to be with, where you should be. The other people you were thinking about before are just the people who live inside your phone.
You remember the work of Margaret Mead. Like it or not, you're a primate. You're part of something bigger than you. Of course you feel bad. It's how you've been made.
You're with a friend in her sunny loft. She takes a quick break from the conversation to return a text. Her other friend does the same. You take a fast look at social media. Just for a moment.
You see what you see there. And you're not there.
You are not with those people because you are with these people. You are not in those places because you are in this place.
Not to mention the people who you will see later today, not talk with but text, the strangers on the train, the loved ones, the future friends, the friends reconnected.
You're with who you're supposed to be with, where you should be. The other people you were thinking about before are just the people who live inside your phone.
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