Not Catherine

Today, I cried three times at work. The second or third time, it was because I thought of a year ago from now, and I feel the same with my friends as I did then. They will all always pick each other. I learn to be more and more casual, less and less committed, and yet I always feel the same.

I thought about how in a month and a half, it’s my birthday. I want to have a party at my apartment, something I have never been able to do, and I already told people a tentative date. I thought about my apartment being filled with people I won’t know a year from now, fake celebrating a quarter century of me, kind of with me. Maybe it won’t be like that, but now that I’ve imagined it, I’ll feel that emptiness. A false tear on a wedding day. A single tear at a Mitski concert.

I talk to him on the phone all the time now. He calls me and I call him. We spoke for nearly three hours today. I only actually hung up on my third attempt.

I miss him a lot.

And I don’t know if we’ve ever been friends. At least not in my world.

He’ll probably be at my birthday too. I’d cry if he isn’t and I’ll cry if he is.