Sorry for not replying sooner

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner!

Been a busy week, sorry!

  

Been crazy lately, will get back to you soon!

Ah, didn’t see this, sorry!

seen

This got lost somewhere, sorry for missing it!

Forgot about this, sorry!

-

I lied.

I did see this message.

I did not forget about it. 

I overthought how to reply to it in the 3 days, 4 hours it took me to respond.

I thought about how I needed to reply lying in bed at 2 am.

I thought about whether replying now would be worse than completely ‘ignoring’ it.

It hasn’t been crazy lately or a busy week.

It’s been a week of lying in bed until 1 pm and procrastinating until I no longer can and then completing the minimum amount of work needed.

It’s been crazy not because I had a lot to do; it’s been crazy because I had almost nothing to do, and I still struggled to do it.

This message did not get lost.

Or maybe it did.

Lost in overthinking

Lost because I kept promising myself I’d reply to it soon - in an hour, in a day, within the week, surely. 

Unsent draft:

“Dear friend,

I not only saw your message,

I read it over 5 times

I thought about 9 different ways to reply

And wrote out 2 of them

But didn’t send it

Afraid that there was some unintentional thing I was implying 

I didn’t send it in fear that you’d send one right back

And the whole process would start again” 

I keep on my online status because I hope it will somehow force me to reply sooner

It doesn’t

It just makes me feel more guilty

You see me online and not read your message

You see me read your message and not reply

You see me typing but not sending

I’m sorry

Sorry

Sorry for making you wonder if I care

I do care

I care too much at times

I care about whether an emoji at the end of my message is going to come across as friendly or passive-aggressive

I care about whether I should write in all lowercase or capitalize some

lowercase is more casual, right?

or does it suggest I don’t care?

Do I need punctuation

Okay 

is so different from

okay. 

I’ll add some exclamation marks to show I care

To show that I am truly sorry

Send

Delete message

Delete for everyone?

☑