Please Settle This,
My best friend Nia and I have been friends since we were eleven. She has seen me through two breakups, a cross-country move and a very bad haircut. I would take a bullet for her.
I just apparently will not take an Uber for her.
Here is what happened. Nia’s birthday drinks were Friday at 8. I had just finished the worst week of my year: a project deadline, my landlord ignoring a leak, my dad in the hospital for two nights (he is okay now). By Friday at 7, I was on the floor of my apartment in my work clothes, staring at the ceiling, and I could not make myself get up.
So I texted her: "I am so sorry, I am completely wiped, I cannot make it tonight. Happy birthday, I love you, lunch next week on me?"
She texted back twenty minutes later: "You always do this. It is starting to feel personal."
And that is the part that hurt, because when I counted, she was not completely wrong. I canceled on her concert in the spring. I left her housewarming after forty minutes. I rescheduled our brunch twice.
But none of that was about her. I am tired. I am tired in a way sleep does not fix. And I thought, out of everyone, my best friend of seventeen years would understand that.
I have not replied yet. Every draft either sounds like an excuse or like a fight.
Am I wrong for canceling when I genuinely have nothing left? Or have I been a bad friend without realizing it?
Signed,
Running on Empty
Letters are written by NowSettled from the disputes people search for. Names and details are made up.
