Just Life Happening
The restaurant was warm, but the dim light made the whole place feel a little tired. Outside, the drizzle smudged the view of the street. Inside, people were talking and eating in that casual, everyday way. I sat down feeling a bit out of sync with it all.
My friends arrived wrapped in their usual rhythm: work outfits slightly wrinkled from the day, hair tied back in practical ways, voices carrying a tired cheerfulness as they slid into their seats. Their tones were familiar — warm, stable, a mix of affection and everyday worries. As they shrugged off their bags and jackets, the conversation shifted naturally to their children: the flu outbreak at school, a teacher who seems too strict, a child who hasn’t been eating well. Their concerns looped around the table like steam rising from the soup.
I listened, nodding. Their lives felt solid, even if the economy has made everything wobble. They have mortgages, routines, group chats with teachers and other parents. They complain about exhaustion but glow when talking about some small thing their child did — a drawing, a joke, a tantrum that was cute only in hindsight. They’ve built lives that look like what most people would consider “normal,” even if nothing feels normal anymore.
And then there’s me.
Sitting with people I’ve known most of my life, and yet feeling like my path branched off into a parallel world. I’m single. I’m juggling freelancing in a time when freelancing feels like balancing on thin ice. My home is full — cats brushing against my shins, dogs sighing in their sleep, small living creatures who depend on me, as if I somehow became their tiny universe. I have chaos, softness, frustration, noise. I have routines built around feeding times and quiet moments with warm fur and sleepy eyes.
While my friends compare school systems, I find myself thinking about vet appointments.
We talk about acquaintances, too — those who followed the same blueprint as my friends, those who are still searching for “the right person,” and those who seem stuck in the same place year after year. And the handful like me, who drift outside the common pattern, living life through different lenses, noticing happiness in small, almost invisible things.
Then I think of another friend, one who will never join us for dinner again. I can still picture her — soft smile, optimism that felt natural in her. In school, we shared secrets and snacks, little fears and little dreams. And then high school separated us, like it does to so many childhood friendships. Life pulled us apart the way tides pull shells in different directions.
Her parents died within a few years of each other. She was very closed to her parents so I can only imagine that each loss took something from her — something foundational. Then came the breakup with her boyfriend, sharp and cruel. I didn’t know exactly what happened, only the aftermath. I thought that she felt alone in the world. Truly alone. And one day, she made her choice. She left.
I didn’t hear about her passing until a year later. When the news finally reached me, it hit like a slow, delayed blow. Not the kind that knocks you down instantly — the kind that aches, spreads, lingers. I kept wondering what she had felt, whether things could have been different, whether she had laughed the last time we talked. Whether kindness and optimism were actually just the surface of something much heavier.
Life is as hard as it is mysterious. Unfair. Beautiful. Brutal. Soft. All tangled together.
Back at the dinner table, my friends were talking about their work and their families. Their hands moved constantly — adjusting a sleeve, tapping a chopstick, smoothing the hair behind an ear. Little gestures made from years of living for more than just themselves. I watched the way worry sat in their shoulders, the way pride softened their eyes when they mentioned something their kids did that morning.
Outside, the rain had stopped, but the windows were still fogged along the edges. People passed by carrying plastic bags and umbrellas dripping water onto the pavement. The restaurant staff dimmed the lights a little more as the evening grew quieter, as if the whole place was slowly exhaling.
I sat there, listening to familiar voices, thinking about the people who were missing from the table, the ones who took different routes, the ones still wandering. Thinking about how some lives expand and some fold inward, how some people find company and others find silence, how everything keeps moving even when you don’t.
The dishes were cleared one by one. My friends gathered their bags and scarves, still talking about what they needed to do the next morning. We walked to the door, the warm air of the restaurant giving way to a cool draft from outside. For a moment, all our reflections overlapped faintly in the glass — different shapes, different stories, standing in the same doorway just before stepping back into our separate nights.
And that was it. The evening just ended there, without any revelation, without any shift. I stepped out into the night feeling exactly the same as I had when I arrived, just with a little more noise in my head.
