When I was a kid, friendship felt pretty straightforward. You’d walk up to another kid on the playground and ask if they wanted to play. If they said yes and were nice, boom: friend. If they said no or broke one of my sacred, unspoken rules? Not a friend. Just some kid with poor judgment.

Have we talked about my difficulty with transitions, liminal spaces, and grey areas? Probably not. That’s a whole post of its own. Or a few extra therapy sessions. But let’s stay on track—this one’s about friendship.

We moved every few years for my dad’s railroad job, which only reinforced my binary view of the world: you’re either my friend or you’re not. New school? No problem. I could find a friend before lunch. Confirmation bias activated. Theory confirmed.

Until the day I met Cheri Visitation.

Now—let’s take a little sidebar here. I don’t know if her name was actually Cheri Visitation. That seems… unlikely. But hey, my last name is Kaos. Who am I to judge? Memory is weird, floaty, and unreliable. So is that her name? Probably not. Is that the name she holds in my mind forever? Absolutely yes. Unless she somehow stumbles across this post and says, “Cami! My childhood bestie! That wasn’t my name. Please call me [INSERT REAL NAME].”

The memory plays out like a rom-com for introverted kindergartners. We locked eyes. She didn’t flinch or look away. She smiled—not a typical smile, a slightly awkward one. The kind that made me feel instantly safe. At recess, I asked her to play, and she said yes. She taught me how to make flower bracelets out of those scraggly weeds that took over behind the baseball diamond. We sat together at story time. And after that, every school day became a Cheri Day.

That’s when I realized all those other decent kids—the ones who wanted to talk about the weather (it was hot) or needed me to prove I liked them—weren’t friends. They were… something else. Something murky. Not enemies. Not friends. Just a third, ambiguous category that made me tired.

I wish I could say Cheri and I are still friends, but—spoiler alert—we moved again.

I was wrecked. I grieved the way I did when my cat Enos died. I didn’t want to do anything. I was inconsolable. Fully gutted.

How gutted? My mom, a crafty wizard with a sewing machine, made me a life-sized stuffed Cheri Visitation doll. She sat silently in my room for years. We barely talked—same as real Cheri and I—but her presence kept me tethered. In hindsight, yeah, kind of creepy. But it worked. In a world full of strangers and enemies, she was a lifeline.

When I look back now, I see my mom trying her damnedest to patch the cracks in my soul with stuffing and stitches. She didn’t understand me, but she loved me with everything she had.

After that, I added a new category to my mental chart of human relationships. The “friendly but not friends” group. I curated what those people saw. Built characters for them to interact with. Maintained the illusion that I fit in—because blending was easier than explaining.

And I held onto that model for years. Through childhood. Through the hormone-fueled labyrinth of adolescence. Let’s skip early adulthood because unpacking that would require a book, a full moon ritual, three protective sigils, and at least one séance with my past self.

In my early 30s, something shifted. I began seeking out friendships that fed me, not just ones where I was the one doing all the feeding. I started factoring in what I wanted from people. What I needed. I realized I had just as much right to take up space as anyone else.

And it was glorious. I collected friends like Pokémon. I went to happy hours. Dinner parties. Art events. People wanted to play with me, and I let them. But I was also the mother of a small child, living in an unhealthy relationship, and my plate was more than full. It was stacked, teetering, and probably on fire.

So I started setting boundaries. Prioritizing. But I still wasn’t sharing what was actually happening. Not the messy stuff. Not the hard stuff. I didn’t want to be a burden. I kept the chaos hidden, wore the mask, smiled through it.

And then, everything collided—relationship issues, health struggles, identity spirals, family stress.

It all came to a head with a friend I truly loved. Someone I thought I didn’t have to perform for. Someone I believed was in it for the long haul. She gave me an ultimatum: be her best friend on very specific terms—dedicated days, hours of contact per week—or let her go.

So we broke up.

It broke my heart. But I saw her, clearly. She was advocating for herself. Asking for what she needed. And that? That was beautiful. Brave. It was just… more than I could give. Maybe more than I ever wanted to give.

It was a good lesson. One I took to heart.

Sometimes, we have to put ourselves first. Not because we want to hurt someone—but because we can’t keep sacrificing ourselves to keep the peace. To keep the mask on. To be what someone else needs when we’re barely holding our own shape.

And that? That truth cracked something open in me. The start of a shift. A shedding. A slow, painful rebirth.

But that’s yet another story for yet another day.