My Silence Is My Self-Defense

Warning: This is part one of a two-part post. Also, it contains drama.

It happened again today. I heard a song that reminded me of her and I just got so sad. It’s always songs. And most of them aren’t even songs she would know or recognize as relating to her, but they inevitably name some element of our friendship that until that moment had been indefinable to me, and then it all comes rushing back like water filling an empty cup.

And, apparently, makes me sound like a Celine Dion song.

A few years ago, I was hurt really badly by a friend. The kind of hurt that makes you think of every other time in your life when you’ve ever been really badly hurt and wonder if you are just destined to go through life getting hurt over and over again.

Like you have a sign on that says: “Please. Hurt me as much as you can. No, really. Don’t hold back.”

I felt like I was drowning in so much grief and loss and pain that I could barely recognize my own car in a parking lot, let alone identify exactly what all was happening in my heart and why it hurt so much.

I remember looking at my face in the mirror some of those days, and being astounded that my eyes still blinked and my mouth still moved and my nose was still in the same place. I felt like there should be some reflection on the outside of the absolutely soul-shattering destruction that was taking place on the inside. I found it outrageous that there was no visible evidence.

I’m not going to tell you what happened, because that gets into versions and interpretations and recollections of conversations that I will not revisit for any amount of money or reward. It’s just that I had lunch with a mutual friend of ours today, and when he asked if she and I still kept in touch, I had no more idea what to say than of what I would say if I had suddenly been asked to speak Farsi.

Sometimes I wish I could talk about it, or  that things could have turned out differently. Yet I also know both those things would be unwise. What’s done is, for better or worse, done.

And yet (as the songs remind me), I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the way I felt when we were together.  When I was with her, I felt like I was living out the ideal version of myself. It still sometimes feels as if a dream died when our friendship went off the cliff.

This was the dream: When she and I were friends, I never felt alone. Ever. Not for a single second.

I know I throw around the phrase “known and not alone” a lot here. And here and here. But what I mean by that is that I want you – and I— that I want us— to feel the way I did when my friend and I were friends.

That you feel understood on a level that goes deeper than words.

That you experience the power of other people’s confidence and belief in you flowing through you like a warm drink.

That you know what is to be known, and accepted, for exactly who you are, right now– and at the same time that there is someone who has a vision for who you could become that is stunning in its beauty and grace.

And, that this someone is fully committed to seeing you live that out.

Of course, I know there’s a risk involved in what we’re doing here. You could get hurt, like I got hurt. Worse, you could choose not to pursue recovery or hope or a future that is better than your past. I recognize that. I am not unsympathetic to your situation. I have a more than healthy respect for what’s going on.

And if it helps, I think I’m getting close to being able to say that it’s worth it. I can’t quite believe I’m writing these words, but time might actually heal. Time, time, time.

More on that next time.