I have three friends from high school. We still text. We make vague plans that rarely happen. But something fundamental shifted the moment we all had kids, and nobody talks about how much it sucks.

We used to be able to call each other at midnight to complain about work, to meet up randomly, to just exist together without producing something. Now friendship requires coordination. You need a sitter. You need four people to agree on a date three weeks in advance. You're checking your phone the whole time because your kid might need you. The conversation is constantly interrupted because somebody's exhausted or distracted or texting their partner about whatever crisis happened at home.

The worst part is that we're all going through the exact same thing - the obliteration of self that comes with parenting, the resentment, the loss of identity, the feeling like you're failing at everything. We should be leaning on each other constantly. Instead, we're so depleted that seeing each other becomes another obligation. Another thing we're not doing perfectly.

I miss my friends. But I'm not sure friendship can survive when both people are running on empty, when you don't have the emotional bandwidth to really show up for someone else, when every interaction happens in the cracks between kid logistics.

I see people talk about their "mom friends" like it's a different species now. It is. We've sorted ourselves by life stage. The non-parents think we've abandoned them. We think they don't understand. Everyone's lonely in the way they're supposed to be.

Sometimes I wonder if this is just the tax you pay for having kids. If deep friendships with your peers are something you get before kids or after they're grown, but not during. And that feels tragic in a way that's too mundane to make anyone care.