If I haven’t checked in on you lately, I’m sorry. I’ve been going through a lot. I’ve been struggling to hold myself together. There’s a part of me that feels like a shitty person because it’s not that hard to send a text, it’s not that hard to be there.
But another part of me feels like it’s okay to be a little distant, to put myself first, to make sure my mental health is in a decent space.
These two parts of me keep playing tug of war, convincing me it’s okay to keep to myself one day, and then convincing me it makes me a horrible person the next day. Either way, you need to know you’ve never left my mind. I still care about you. I still love you.
If I haven’t checked in on you lately, I’m sorry. I should really text you. I should reach out to ask you how you’ve been doing lately. Honestly, I’ve thought about doing that a million times, but I can never find the right words to send a text. It’s not that I don’t care about you. It’s not that I don’t want to set aside time for you. It’s not that you’re low on my list of priorities.
The real problem is the moment when you’re done telling me about how you’ve been and the conversation gets turned around on me. I don’t want to talk about how I’ve been doing. I don’t want to burden you with the weight on my shoulders. But I also don’t want to lie. I don’t want to pretend like everything is perfectly find because it will look like too obvious of a lie. So I don’t say anything. I keep quiet. And I know that isn’t the right move, either. I know it’s wrong of me. I know I should do better.
If I haven’t checked in on you lately, I’m sorry. I’m going to start being a better friend soon. I’m going to make a point to catch up with you, to let you rant to me, to let you brag to me, to let you lean on me.
Just because I want to be left alone when I’m going through tough times doesn’t mean that you feel the same way. Just because I assume you already know how much I care about you doesn’t mean that is the reality.
If I haven’t checked in on you lately, I’m sorry, but you should know I’ve been thinking about you this entire time. You should know your happiness, your safety, and your sanity are incredibly important to me. You should know I haven’t stopped caring about you, not even a little bit. And I promise, I’m going to start doing a better job of proving that to you in the future. I’m going to make sure you never wonder whether I care because the answer is always going to be yes. 
