Replaced?

About a month ago, I started noticing that people who I’ve been very close to for a long time were suddenly quite distant with me. Some people are just too busy to interact with me regularly, and I can understand that. I’ve got a ridiculously full schedule, with school and work and the comic contest I entered. (Well, technically it’s an Original Character Tournament, but that’s neither here nor there.) It’s hard to find some time to see someone. But that doesn’t mean that texts should go unanswered completely. A lot of the trouble is I feel as though I’ve been replaced, something better has come along in other people’s lives.

Let’s be fair, for some of my friends, better things have come along. And I’ve been pushing some people away as well. We all grow out of people sometimes. It seems that it happens around me at an accelerated rate, is all.

There’s one particular change in friendship that I don’t really know what I want to do about. I’ve known this guy for years, and for some reason we clicked even though we’re pretty much complete opposites. He can be difficult to get along with, but we’ve stood with each other through some difficult stuff. Except, like I said, I started to notice I’d been replaced. He’s done this before, he found a surrogate for his male best friend almost immediately after the guy left work, so I probably should have expected this. Except I’m still here. I was here when this happened. There are two girls who filled in what I considered my niche. Only they fill it better, it seems, because I’m not so good at going out and partying and all that, and they apparently are. Either way, I don’t know how to behave around any of them, because I’m not sure where I stand. I used to be friends with all of them, but I feel like there’s this distance between us I can’t bridge anymore. And the girls are starting to act a lot more like the guy. As I mentioned, he’s a jerk. Very judgmental, finds humor in what he thinks is jokingly bigoted comments, a real sarcastic bastard. He’s also got trouble sticking to one girl, it seems.

I don’t think he knows that he pushed me really far with his jackass-ery yesterday. I’ve been tetchy and emotional for the past week, but he wouldn’t shut up. I started snapping back at him, and I think his best-friend surrogate realized I was seriously upset, but didn’t do much to stop the conversation. Whatever, that’s not really the point of this. Although the whole separation might be a blessing in disguise. It may be time for yet another round of growing up.

My point is, I’m feeling lost. I don’t feel like I can turn to the people I used to be able to turn to when things started getting out of hand. That, in turn, is making things get out of hand. I’m feeling a little bit….

Well, I can say this. While I’ve been replaced, I’m not going to knock anyone down a crevice or out the window with a remote-controlled car in order to regain my old position. Neither do I intend to be stuck on the people who have pushed me aside to the point where I’m willing to simply watch the world go by. I will not be put in the attic or the dump or the fender of a truck. I’ll also stop making Toy Story references.

….

Maybe.

I keep thinking about Rex through all of this.