Last night, one of my friends called me, but I didn’t answer. My phone was on silent, so I didn’t even know she was calling me. I found out the next morning that she was drunk and actually really needed help. When I heard that, I honestly felt horrible.
For the longest time, people have told me that I need to check my messages more and stop keeping my phone on silent. I always knew they were probably right, but I never really cared that much. I would just think, “I’ll see it later,” or “If it’s important, they’ll call again.” It never felt like a big deal to me.
But this time it hit differently.
I kept thinking about the fact that she could have actually died, and I would’ve never even known she was trying to reach me. That thought really scared me. What if something worse had happened? What if she’d been completely alone? What if I was the person she was counting on, and I just happened to have my phone on silent?
I know I shouldn’t blame myself because I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t intentionally ignore her, and there was no way for me to know that she was in trouble. But I still feel bad because I keep thinking, “What if I’d just answered?”
I think what scares me the most is how normal everything felt to me that night. I wasn’t ignoring some obvious emergency. I was just living my life, not checking my phone, because I thought nothing important was happening. And then I found out that someone I care about was actually going through something and needed help.
It made me realize that I never really know when someone might need me. Obviously, I can’t be on my phone 24/7 or answer every single notification immediately. But maybe I should take it more seriously when people tell me to check my phone or make sure I can hear important calls.
I don’t want to become someone who is constantly worried about missing a call. I just want to be more aware. Because this time, I got lucky. My friend was ok. But thinking about what could have happened was enough to make me realize that maybe being reachable is more important than I thought.
I didn’t answer last night. I can’t change that now. But I can make sure that next time, I’m there if someone needs me.