Knowing when you're grown

I think I realized I was grown when I no longer had a friend circle after spending years helping the people around me. It was Christmas break of senior year when I realized not one person I had reached out to and lent a helping hand wanted to do the same for me when I needed it. That break had been a rough one on me as I had had an explosive falling out with a good friend over a girl, and with the hurt that caused me, I looked to my contact list to find help. I messaged some of my closest friends first, asking them how they were and letting them know I wasn't doing so well. They all feigned pity and I bought into it until later that same week when none of them would hold a steady conversation with me. I had spent my time and money developing relationships with these people, hoping to leave my lonely past behind me in the six different houses I had lived in during my childhood, and yet after all my effort and time I had spent triyng to make memories, in little over a week I realized I had developed little more than some good acquaintances. No shoulders to cry on, no one to ask advice from. Telling someone I had a problem resulted in short, staccato texts that said little when read literally but read heaps when read in context. "Oof" and "damn" and "I'm sorry :(" filled my inbox, revealing to me that when it was my time to hurt, tending to me was tedious and not worth much. Immediately, it hurt. Eventually, though, I realized that I was really grown up after that. To me, being grown means being alone in the presence of a crowd.

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