Lately, I’ve been starting to feel as though my friends are so much farther ahead of me in life. Every week, someone gets engaged, or announces a pregnancy, or complains of having a slimy alien parasite crawl down her throat, attach itself to her brain stem, and take over her body as part of a wide-scale invasion. Meanwhile, I’m still going on first dates!
It seems like just yesterday that we were all carefree twentysomethings with entry-level jobs, kissing strangers in bars at 2 A.M. But now my friends all have responsibilities, mortgages to pay, or a planet to overrun and strip of its natural resources until Earth is a lifeless husk.
I see my friends a lot more infrequently than I used to—everyone’s so busy now, with work and the aforementioned alien invasion and all. When we do get together, it’s a lot harder to relate. The only thing my friends want to talk about is their kids—at least, that’s what I assume they’re talking about. It’s hard to tell, since they mostly communicate telepathically via alien hive mind. Talk about feeling left out of the group chat!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy for my friends. I want what they have. Every time I see one of them showing off a new baby bump or spewing black bile from her eyeballs as the alien parasite sucks nutrients from its human host, I ask myself, When’s it going to be my turn? But, alas, my body has repeatedly rejected the alien parasite, for reasons unknown. And I’m still going on first dates!
Social media hasn’t helped. How do I stop comparing myself with others when their lives look so amazing? All the luxurious vacations and doting partners. My old roommate, Harper, posted about a big promotion at work: she got to infiltrate an emergency summit at Camp David, where the parasite controlling her body separated itself and infected twenty-nine world leaders. And all I could do was comment, “You go, #girlboss!,” while sending out yet another job application.
I know life isn’t linear, and I shouldn’t compare my path with anyone else’s. Some of my friends may get divorced, lose their jobs, or be used as a human shield in an alien counterstrike to protect the Hive Queen. We’re just in different places in our lives.
At the end of the day, no matter where we are in our journeys, I know that my friends love me. Even as they strap me to an examination table and prepare to vivisect me and harvest my organs, and I scream, “Harper, I know you’re still in there! It’s me! Don’t do this!,” causing a half second’s hesitation, just long enough for me to break free from my restraints, jab a pipe through Harper’s abdomen, and escape alien captivity.
So, for now, I’m just going to focus on myself, maybe travel or take a pottery class, really use the time I have out here in the woods alone, hiding from the invaders, for some self-discovery. Because someday I might just meet one of the few other human survivors, and as we lock eyes, knowing that we may well be the last two of our species, I’ll know that I’ve found my person, and see that the long journey was all worth it! ♦
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August 02, 2021 at 05:00PM
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Feeling Left Behind by My Young, Successful, Alien-Parasite-Infected Friends - The New Yorker
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