Going Missing for Two Days — My Helicopter Rescue

I tend to feel an immense amount of pressure to stay on top of everything I have going on. People have told me that I need to stop glamorizing the hustle, and I honestly have no idea when I ever said this shit was glamorous. Anyone close to me knows how hectic my schedule is, how busy my day-to-day life can be, and how sometimes I just need to disappear for a little while. You’d think they’d be understanding if I go missing for a day or two, right? Wrong.

A few days ago, I celebrated my birthday with friends and family. It was a great time, but I had a long list of pending tasks waiting for me right after. Then, the following day, my aunt passed away. Between trying to process both events and managing everything in between, my mind was spinning. I had no time to check emails or respond to messages. By the time I did, I had over 200 unread texts and more than 2,000 social media notifications, I am popular, ok?

While at work yesterday, I got a call—AT WORK—from my dearest friend Valerie. She had been texting and calling, and when she saw that I hadn’t been online for 48 hours, she panicked. She and our other friend, Elise, started to worry that I was either hospitalized or in jail. They even reached out to other friends and my brother.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I love that I have friends who care, who notice when I go quiet, but there was obviously a reason for my silence. Thankfully, they decided to halt the helicopter rescue once they confirmed I was safe.

Valerie made me think when she said, “Everyone deserves friends who check on them.” That hit me. It made me realize how overwhelmed I was, how much I had been bottling up, and how I had completely shut down without even realizing it. Talking it through with them helped more than I expected.

So, here’s what I hope for you: I hope you have friends who will notice if you go missing, even if it’s only been two hours. I hope you have people who genuinely care about your well-being, who check in on you when you’ve gone quiet. I hope you and your friends have pictures from college from the night SigEp hosted a toga party, and I hope you can recognize everyone in the pictures, because we still don’t know who the man in our picture is. And most importantly, I hope you have friends who love you, who you can be vulnerable with, who will hold space for you when you need it most. You deserve that kind of love and care. 

love, 

Ale