She got engaged four days before I was supposed to announce a promotion I'd worked myself into the ground for. And the timing meant every conversation in our friend group was ring, ring, ring. Cut, clarity, the proposal, all of it. My news just sort of evaporated before I could even share it.
I felt small. And then I felt ashamed for feeling small, which is somehow worse. Like, this is your best friend, one of the happiest moments of her life, and part of you is sulking in the corner keeping score?
By the next week it had passed completely. I was genuinely, fully happy for her. No trace of it left.
But that one week is the part that sticks with me. Not that I felt it — feelings show up uninvited, fine. It's that I let it exist quietly instead of just being glad for her from the start. That's the bit I'll never say out loud to anyone but strangers on the internet.