It Feels So Scary Getting Old

My greatest strength is the fact that when I feel something, I feel it deeply.

Being Skylar Ernst, I make too big of a deal of the most random things: my parents’ wedding album, witnessing Alex Russo win her family wizard competition, and on some overly emotional days, getting wayyyyy too invested in the lyrics of “Traitor” by Olivia Rodrigo. 

When I was 16 and my dad took my car away: DEMON. When the dog dies in any movie ever: SOBFEST. When thousands of lanterns take flight in the air: AWESTRUCK. There is absolutely no surface level to my emotions. It’s either feel all the feelings, or drastically self-implode. No in between, no middle ground, and no compromise. 

I guess you could say that for me, feeling things, while it’s my greatest strength, it’s also my greatest weakness. 

Skylar’s emotions: Not an easy pill to swallow… for her, or anyone around her. 

Lately, I’ve been in what feels like this purgatory of emptiness. Nothing really happens here, just floating through the motions, thinking on how to atone the circumstances of my life. That sounds completely morbid, but I think entering adulthood kinda does that to a person. 

“Oh, you’re not in school?”
”Well, what are you doing with your life?”

“That won’t make you money.”

“You’re too young for that.”

“You’re too old for that.”

“Here are some bills.”

“You’re doing it wrong.” 

“You want to get married?” 

So when you mix this arbitrary sense of emotional haywire, and pair it with the emergence of adult life, the words “uneasy,” or “scared,” or “sad,” don’t seem to quite cover the overwhelmingness of being sentimental to my core.

Because I want to cling to all the things: Memories, moments, feelings, friends.

Friends.

That’s the one folks.

The one that’s been wrecking me the most lately. 

And I’m getting older, and I can’t necessarily stop these things from slipping away- these people.

So that’s where we’re at today: this sensation of reaching out to the past and returning to the present with nothing. My mom used to tell me that some people are only in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. I just wish that all of them were for a lifetime. Even if the friendship was better off ending. Even if we’re not compatible anymore. Even if we’re both so drastically different from our past selves that we would crash and burn more together, than we would now that we’re apart. 

But I think that’s also just who I am: loyal to the core; forever wishing back the ties I had to people at one point or another. Because growing up, I was always a girl who had a best friend. Most of the time, that person was Christy. In fact, it’s still Christy... with the added addition of my bestie bae Maika and adventure buddy Maggie. But that’s besides the point. 

My point is that I still have a box of stuffed animals in my closet that I can’t bear to part with. I know all of their names- all of their stories. It’s honestly a little ridiculous if I’m being completely honest. But they’re just chillin’ in there because my heart remembers what it was like to love them.

Just like Russell, and Daniel, and Alexa, and Mel, and David, and Sophia, and Wyatt, and Ethan, and Lainey, and Hayden, and Ivan, and Quin, and Cristian. 

Why is it so easy to lose contact with people, but so hard to forget them?

Me getting rid of my Barbies: Forget it. I was torn up for weeks.

Me losing people: That’s a whole other monster to slay. 

Earlier today, I was in a meeting with Jahsh and Maika for our FCA internship, and I don’t remember exactly what we were discussing, but Maika said something about how I was really good at setting boundaries for myself with people. 

Of course the compliment made me feel good in the sense that it was a compliment, but the more I thought about it in that moment, the more it made me second guess if I actually was good with my boundaries? 

Because here I am, typing all of this out on my computer at 12am, and my entire brain is consumed by the way Jessy and I would blast Taylor Swift at night going up the 5 to get the feelings out. Or the way Quin would drive me around my entire senior year because he was the one person in my life at the time that I could tell anything to. Or Ethan, who guarded my heart so fiercely, when I couldn’t- yelling at me to try and get it through my thick skull that I deserved better. 

I slip up on these memories wondering again and again if I really do have any boundaries? If I did, I feel like I wouldn’t be waiting to be haunted by ghosts from the past. Because again, if it wasn’t obvious before, I’m the kind of person who CLINGS to things: Stuffed animals, friends, stories, blankets. 

But at what cost?

I go into every friendship thinking that they’re going to be in my wedding party one day, the cool aunt or uncle to my future children, the co-owner of a lake house with me and my husband.

And when they aren’t, I end up completely heartbroken. 

For as long as I can remember, I’ve held my friendships on the highest of high pedestals. My friends were my everything. I think people, girls especially, used to think I was immature when I was younger because I was never a boy crazy kinda girl. Yes I had crushes, yes I dated in high school, and yes, I’m even in a serious relationship right now, but I’ve never been boy crazy. My friends have always been enough for me. 

And when I go back to that visual of someone like Ethan or Jessy being at my wedding one day, I realize that we never go into friendships thinking that they’re going to end. 

But I think that’s why someone like me is caught so horribly off guard when they do.

I’ve had a lot of friends come and go in my life. A majority of them were friends who were just seasons; some really, really good seasons. But I had a really big loss in the friend department this year. In all reality, I lived and breathed for this girl; I would’ve done anything for her if she asked it of me. She was my best friend. The kind of girl where you had no questions about whether she’d stay in your life for a long, long time. 

(Again, not the definition of someone who has good boundaries. In fact, that’s like, the exact opposite).

But, at the end of the day, our friendship just ran its course. My friends have always been my everything, and for her, that wasn’t necessarily the case. We ended like a doomed marriage or a funeral for a baby: Not the intention, and far too soon. And I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of why the two of us truly ended in flames, but when she stopped talking to me, and stopped calling me her friend, and basically ditched me in every sense of the word, it felt like I got shanked in the parking lot of a grocery store on the bad side of town. 

It really led to an unfortunate series of events: Sobbing to Taylor Swift in the car, changing her contact name in my phone to her actual name, switching out the photos of us in my room… the whole nine yards. 

I guess where I’m going with all of this is that growing up sucks. Losing people sucks. Adults trying to offer you “helpful” advice sucks. It’s not glamorous at all. It’s confusing, and messy, and overwhelming, and as someone who is extremely emotional at the most inopportune times, it’s the most instantaneous way to unlock a hurricane of vehemence within me. 

I hate it. 

I hate, hate, hate it.

I hate it like I’ve never hated a feeling before; and as it’s been stated multiple times in this blog post, I’m a gal who feels all the feelings. 

I’m tired of focusing on the looming presence of struggle while being a young adult. Of constant worry. An endless state of anxiety. I don’t know if anyone can relate to that, but based on the studies of this generation being the most anxiety-ridden generation thus far, I would bet a small amount of money that maybe someone out there can relate. I would bet a larger chunk of money if I had it, but alas, I am poor. 

Or maybe that’s a reach, and I really am the only one struggling with all this crap in my head. But I really don’t think I am. 

I was listening to a podcast today, and the girl said something so prominent that I think is going to stick with me for a long while after this post. The quote “everything happens for a reason” is so true. And if you don’t know what the reason is yet, then you’re probably in the happening. 

For me, that’s oddly comforting. 

I am IN the happening. 

Maybe you are too. 

Perhaps we can figure out the happening together. 

Maybe one day I’ll be super successful and have my life together. Maybe I’ll end up living in a shack alone in the woods with only a dog as my companion. Maybe I’ll die when I’m 23. I don’t know. 

BUT. Everything happens for a reason. 

And whether those old friends of mine that I mourn on the daily were only reasons or seasons, there’s a purpose to why we met. There’s an explanation for why they left. 

So I guess in conclusion, we’re figurin’ it out folks. One day at a time.