Sometimes I Feel Like I Lost All My Friends

Sometimes I sit there—usually folding the same load of laundry I swear I just folded yesterday—and it hits me.

I used to have so many friends.

Group chats buzzing. Last-minute plans. Coffee dates that turned into dinner. Laughing until our stomachs hurt. I didn’t have to schedule friendship. It just… happened.

Now?

Now I schedule dentist appointments six months out and still forget spirit week at school.

Somewhere between bedtime routines, snack negotiations, school emails, and surviving on cold coffee, my circle got smaller. Quietly. No big fight. No dramatic fallout. Just life doing what life does—pulling everyone in different directions.

And that part hurts in a sneaky way.

Because losing friends as an adult doesn’t look like slamming doors. It looks like unanswered texts you meant to reply to. Like saying “we should get together” and actually meaning it… but never finding the time. It looks like watching people move on—new jobs, new cities, new versions of themselves—while you’re just trying to remember if you brushed your teeth this morning.

And here’s the weird part:
I’m not even mad at anyone.

We’re all tired. We’re all juggling. We’re all trying to keep tiny humans alive (or ourselves, honestly). Life got louder, fuller, heavier—and friendship slipped to the bottom of the to-do list, right under “rest” and “drink water.”

Sometimes I wonder if they think I disappeared on purpose.
Sometimes I worry I did.

But also… motherhood changed me.

I became slower to open up. More protective of my energy. Less interested in surface-level friendships and more desperate for the kind where I can show up messy, late, and emotionally exhausted—and still be welcome.

And maybe that’s why it feels like I lost everyone.

Because I didn’t just lose friends.
I outgrew some.
I drifted from some.
And some drifted from me.

That doesn’t mean I failed at friendship.

It means I’m human.

And on the days it feels extra lonely, I remind myself: seasons change. People come back around. New connections grow when you least expect them—sometimes in the school pickup line, sometimes through a random DM, sometimes years later with someone who gets this version of you.

The one who can’t stay out late.
The one who needs a rain check.
The one who loves deeply but has limits now.

Friendship doesn’t always look loud anymore.

Sometimes it looks quiet.
Sometimes it looks like a text that says, “I miss you.”
Sometimes it looks like being your own friend first.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s not losing everyone.

Maybe that’s making room.

💛 A quiet hooray to the friendships that changed, faded, and are still finding their way back.