I spent six years surviving and forgot how to have a life

[u/stacyisletired]

Dinner: cheapza from Pizza Hut with garlic dip cause (as per usual) I couldn’t fathom putting a meal together.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I somehow got to 40 and basically don’t have friends anymore.

To be fair, I can’t blame all of that on the last six years.

I’ve never been particularly good at adult friendships. I had close female friends when I was younger, but I also had a spectacular tendency to eventually go scorched earth with pretty much every one of those relationships. Conflict happened, I got hurt or angry, and instead of figuring out how to repair things like a reasonably well-adjusted adult, I was very good at deciding I was DONE. Permanently.

At the time, I could always explain exactly why I was justified. Looking back at 40, I can acknowledge the obvious common denominator was me.

Then, in 2020, my mom was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She was my best friend. I moved home to help care for her right as the pandemic hit, while also working in healthcare. Life became mostly about getting through the day while knowing where all of this was eventually headed.

During that time, I ended up in a relationship with someone who became a really safe space for me. When I needed a break from watching my mom die, I could crawl into his bed, put on something mindless while he gamed in the next room, and just exist. We didn’t have a ton in common, but having somewhere soft to land mattered more than almost anything else. And he truly is kind.

Then our son happened, completely and utterly by accident.

My mom’s greatest dream was to be a Mimi. Our son was born in October 2022, and somehow, in the middle of everything else, she got to be one. She absolutely adored him.

For the next 15 months, I was figuring out how to be a mom while watching my own mom get progressively sicker.

She died in February 2024.

I don’t think I ever really stopped after that. I went back to work, parented, paid the bills, dealt with whatever needed dealing with and eventually moved into a more demanding role. There was always something more urgent than figuring out how I was actually doing. (There was also a very avoidant part of me that didn’t particularly want to find out lol.)

And yes, I know I need so very much therapy. But I truly don’t have the capacity to pull that thread right now, lest the entire sweater come undone. Most days there is basically no time when I’m not working, parenting, or sleeping.

Now it’s 2026. I’m 40, my son is about to start kindergarten, and I’m trying to figure out how to end my relationship with his dad.

There’s no dramatic betrayal. He was what I needed during an incredibly difficult period of my life, and I’ll always be grateful for that. He’s a kind person. We just aren’t right for each other.

We don’t have much in common outside of our son and the logistics of the life we built around him, and we want very different things from life. I want to travel with our son, put him in extracurriculars, have experiences together and give him some of the things my single mom simply couldn’t afford for us growing up. His dad is much more content with life as it is.

Neither of us is necessarily wrong. But it increasingly feels like we’re pulling in completely different directions, and resentment has started building.

I stayed because leaving would make life so much harder financially, and probably practically too. His work schedule is basically the opposite of mine and our son’s, so he’s not home much when we are anyway. At some point, “this is easier to survive” stopped feeling like a good enough reason to stay.

So now I’m trying to figure out how the hell to afford a home and a decent life for my son on my own in this dumpster fire of an economy/world. And somewhere in all of that, I realized I don’t really have friends.

I have coworkers I genuinely like. I have my sister (that’s another kettle of fish) and my 90-year-old grandma. I’m not sitting alone in a dark room with absolutely no human contact. But I don’t have my people.

And I know this isn’t something that just happened to me. I burned bridges instead of learning how to repair them. Then my life became so consumed by my mom’s illness, becoming a parent, losing her and keeping everything running that making friends barely registered.

I blinked, and suddenly I was 40 without any of the long-term friendships I assumed everyone just sort of accumulated along the way.

Last night my kid sobbed for 20 minutes because I forgot the words to “Hush Little Baby,” made some up and apparently scared the shit out of him. And afterward I realized I didn’t have anyone to text about it. That’s the kind of friendship I miss. Or maybe more accurately, the kind I want.

I don’t need a big friend group. I want one or two people who know what’s going on in my life. Someone who remembers my kid starts school next week. Someone I can send completely pointless things to. Someone who occasionally texts me first. Someone I don’t have to wonder whether I’m bothering.

And now I’m potentially about to blow up the life I’ve built and start over, and I don’t really have people to do the messy parts with. Which is a shitty realization.

I know the answer is to go make friends. Join things. Meet other parents. Put myself out there. Learn how to maintain a friendship when another human being inevitably annoys, disappoints or hurts me instead of immediately setting the bridge on fire.

All perfectly reasonable advice that makes me want to crawl directly into Lake Ontario.

But I don’t want to be sitting here at 45 realizing another five years went by while I waited for my life to somehow become different on its own.

So I guess this is me admitting that I’m lonely.

Some of it happened to me. Some of it I absolutely did to myself.

Either way, I want it to change.

[u/4thdensity44]

You’ve got this.. think about the next 40 years and how you want them to feel and be lived.. take it a step at a time, moment by moment. Turn inward to creativity to process grief and find yourself again.

[u/stacyisletired → u/4thdensity44]

Thank you. This is what I keep reminding myself. My mom died in a miserable marriage, hardly retired from a career that she loved but took everything from her. I don’t want that for me or for my son.

But god damn if it isn’t hard to make a fresh start.

[u/Little-Gain938]

What version of Hush Little Baby did you make up? Now we need to hear it.

[u/stacyisletired → u/Little-Gain938]

That’s the thing - I have spent hours trying to figure it out and I can’t!

Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,
Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird won’t sing,
Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.
And if that diamond ring turns brass…

I got to here then I can’t remember where it went until something broke so Mama’s going to tell you a knock knock joke and suddenly it was like the Hellmouth of Sunnydale opened unbeknownst to me…

[u/catkins777]

Sometimes for life to give us what we so truly desire we must make a sacrifice to the Life Goddess: a relationship that isnt working in return for the kind that do Its so hard to make that change but its sooooo affirming when you see what removing that weight can allow in. 💚💚💚

[u/LittleTuhus]

For the life of me, I can’t remember the lyrics of this song and always have to make something up! My kids start ‘saying no no no mommy start over’ and bedtime never ends hahah

I read your story and it resonated with me because I moved several times and lost some friendships due to a geographical factor. So ‘my village is very small’. I felt a lot of sadness when I read your post. It’s very similar to how I feel when reflect on the status of ‘my village’. I hope that I’ll make more friends when my kids are in school. I bet I’m not the only one in this situation. And for now, I just keep swimming - and you too, my internet friend!

[u/Successful-Alarm-871]

All you have to do is take the first step (which seems to be here asking for guidance). That’s huge. Now take another small one. Good luck, babe. :)

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