Looking back at old text messages from Snapchat and Instagram made me realize how much people I’ve actually lost from my life. I remember the feelings I used to get sending those texts, feelings ranging from happiness, anger, sadness, frustration, whatever I felt, I didn’t hide behind a fake smile. I just let my genuine feelings elude me. I’ve lost that ability. Socializing was almost like second nature, I was confident enough to show people who I really am. Now I struggle to even talk with my close family members out of an irrational fear that they despise my being, which I know they don’t. I’ve since tried to reconnect with a few people who were significant parts of my life growing up, but it’s not the same at all. They’ve either changed too much, I’ve become so alienated from people in general that I forgot how to carry a genuine conversation without my anxiety engulfing my entire body, or both. Maybe it’s my nature to cease contact with others during bouts of depression that helped drive a wedge between me and my friendships. Who knows, but the matter of the fact is, they’ve all moved on. It’s a combined feeling of nostalgia, extreme sadness, longing, and emptiness reading my friendships from years ago unfold, only to have them vanish before I knew it. Thankfully, I do have a handful of people from my past that I still consider my friends to this day which is nice. I’m looking forward to a new chapter where I get myself feeling back to normal and I can have a whole new batch of potential genuine friendships that I can retry to connect with, and to get it right this time, wherever and whenever that might be.