Even Like This

On drifting, friendship, and paddling back to shore

Written in July 2025

For months, I’ve felt like I’ve been stranded on a life raft. Days blurred together, one wave after another. Survival mode. Disconnected. Untethered. Forgotten, even by myself.

I forgot that I could put my hand out. For help. For love. For something steady to hold onto.

I’d pulled back from everything that made me feel known: the group texts, the book club plans, the easy laughter that used to fill my evenings. I told myself I needed space, that it was simpler not to show up than to explain the mess my life had become. It wasn’t that no one would reach back... I just wasn’t ready to be seen.

But this week, I finally showed up. I said yes — for the first time in a long time — and went to the movies with my two best friends. It wasn’t a big thing. But it was everything.

Sitting there in the dark, elbows brushing between popcorn and previews, I remembered something simple and startling: they still love me. Even now. Even like this.

I’ve lost a lot: energy, motivation, certainty. But not everything. Not the laughter between scenes. Not the steady presence in the seat beside me.

In that dark theater, I realized I wasn’t as untethered as I thought. Something solid was still there. Something that looks a lot like love, like friendship, like shore.

Maybe being adrift on the ocean isn’t the end. Maybe it’s just a pause, a chance to breathe before I start paddling back to shore. The current hasn’t stopped, and I’m still learning to trust it. But I know now that I’m not alone out here. There are people who reach back when I reach out, and maybe that’s what keeps me afloat until I find my way home again.