Negative Nancy And Hurricane Harvey Sitting In A Tree

I was supposed to become a diligent little blogger. It was going to be therapy. For a while it was! I lost steam when I learned of the passing of a fellow blogger I instantly adored. She was tough and kind. She was quality.

Also, last year just took me by the ankle and spun me around for 365 days. It began with my purse being stolen. It ended with me fracturing a bone on my foot. In between, I lost precious kitties, my baby, Harvey took the expensive part of my house and soaked it in shit-water for nearly three weeks, I kicked a sewing needle and it went alllllllll the way into my toe, and my family collectively lost their kindness. Seriously, that bucket of dead dicks stepmother of mine? She never did undick herself. I believe she is going for a record. I should be recording.

I lost a couple of friendships but that hardly matters. Losing friendships was why I thought 2016 was a terrible year! I implicitly recall crying to my stepmother (ha) about how much it hurt to lose those weighty old friendships. Perspective is slutty. What shall this year slobber on? No slobbering, 2018. Pretty, witty please.

My dad, the optimist, he always told me that the more friends you have, the more disappointment. Indeed, some old friends have disappointed me, but where was my warning about the baby? How truly nothing else fucking matters when you lose one? How long does this last? Fuck friends, I kindly request my dreams back.

I still dream about my baby nearly every night. Once I passed what was supposed to be my due date, I no longer dreamed of an infant- the nocturnal tease became instant three. A precocious, dark-haired toddler whose face I cannot capture with paint. Or colored pencils. Or pastels. Or the most ambitious concentration that ever walked the land of broken hearts…

I have stopped taking my medicine, but I swear it is how I have thus far survived all this shit. I can hardly explain it but it’s true.

I have increased my intake of leafy greenery. That helps, too.

I am going to write two blogs a month. That is my goal. Therapy doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

Harvey took the couch I laid on with my darling, Castor, when he took his last, sweet breath. I could lay on that couch, close my eyes, put my hand over my heart, and feel again the pure love from my beloved kitten. I could plainly feel his soft fur beneath my palm. I could hear his dainty, quirky chirp meow.

I cannot do that anymore. Sometimes things are the most important things. It’s not nice to shame those lovers of their things. I would probably punch an old lady in her nose if I could have that couch back.

I am not a good person. I am a sad person. A very, very mad person. I want my babies.

I’m Hungry

My whole world, all I both love and hate, and all the thingy things that simply please me are in my refrigerator.

The day is dismal. Nothing appeals to me because everything fucking sucks. Oh, wait, a pudding cup! It was hiding behind that bullshit Tupperware I have been too scared to open for months. Let me just scoot that to the side and yay! My little sweet treat will shove away the ‘blah’ mundane fuck ass day. My kittens are pudding cups. I come home too grim, and the pudding cups come galloping into the room. Instant grin.

Bills, the inevitable pieces of shit! They are the Worchester sauce I keep replacing but rarely use. Because of the rare use, I forget about the boring bottle on the counter and find it the next morning. Having no desire to pick a fight with a spoiled anchovy, I throw the boring bottle away. I have to replace it, though, because when you need worchestersauce … nothing else will do. I never remember to pay my phone bill on time.

Hellman’s mayonnaise is my mother. No matter how irritated she makes me, no matter how serious the diet, there is only one mayonnaise. Kraft light mayo cannot work a fucking lighter, much less hold a candle.

The little plastic piece of prison is cheese. You can put cheese on damn near anything but you shouldn’t. I shouldn’t have a credit card, but I do.

My boyfriend is that bottle of divine wine. When it does me right, wow. I am giggling and brave. Love is the best damn thing. When it does me wrong, and I wake up the next day to throbbing pain too strong to salvage the day, I hate it. I am done. I am never drinking again. I actually like being single, so I don’t need this shit! I promise I swear, I will never drink again, sobriety doesn’t frighten me! Please just stop making me throw-up. Both nauseated and empty, I am helpless. There is no reprieve. Only time will heal.

The giant collection of fast-food sauces and packets is that pair of jeans I have had since highschool. How can anyone know for sure they will never fit into their old favorite jeans again? They cannot! So those jeans are saved, for that ‘just in case.’ I love Mcdonalds hot mustard! So if I ever run out of mustard, which has motherfucking never ever ever happened to me, I will be glad I saved those likely expired tiny tubs.

When I happen to catch my favorite song playing, I am doing the dance you do when you find someone else’s delicious leftovers in a styrofoam container in your fridge. They aren’t my left overs, but I am so happy they stopped by at this perfect time. Yum yum yum.

Pineapple and cold showers. A tart shock and then super satisfying.

Icy water pitcher. Cool bedsheets at the end of a night so long the birds are chirping. Such fresh refresh.

How the fuck did this onion turn to mush?! Getting out of the shower and realizing the bottle of lotion is empty and my last clean towel fell on the floor and a cat peed on it.

I do not understand why I even buy bread. It’s impossible to watch television. Moldy commercials sneak up too quick. I might enjoy one or two sandwiches before the next barrage of perky advertising cancels out that easy lunch plan. I’ll wait for Netflix.

Fuck Netflix.

It’s been three months. I read it’s about a three month average for women to … to what? Recover? Get over it? Stop talking about it? There is no nonsense thing in my fridge to compare to this absence within me. I suppose I could say I am hungry. My empty belly desires what is not there. My heart hurts. My brain hates. Unfairness is not affected by the complaining of it. Crying doesn’t sway a thing in your favor. If it were a flavor, it would taste like the most delicious thing the tip of your tongue once touched momentarily after everyone else had a feast, and then that taste went extinct.

But life is not yet done, it’s got pounds of maggots to hand out. Appreciate your electricity, we are spoiled. We forget, have fits, drain batteries, and barely feel alive without a device. The forgotten rotten swarm with the flies. We should make ourselves sick.

Truly, it would be one constant retch if it weren’t for the kittens.

Are You Taking Your Medicine?

Mollycoddle my feelings, lollipop. Do not be so sticky. If I wanted ticky tacky hands I would high-five my new enemies.

Shame on the titties and their freeloading thin-fabric jiggling. Giggling fleshy blobs taking not a damn thing seriously enough. I would have a word with them, but I cannot make eye-contact. Without a stern penetrating ocular stance, how can I make my point stand?

I can’t. And it’s for the best that instead, I rest. Better I listen intently to all this hissy whistling. You demand just a smidge of my attention so you can spout some very sound stuff- syrup thick full of wisdom and magical fluff. I ought simply hush, lean back, and soak up the bubblegum.

Yum yum yum.

Fuck yourself better next time, sweetie-heart, and wake up happier. You will bring better candy and I will not have the dastardly task of sifting through this bland menagerie of lackluster and unlickable trash. I hate licorice but you already knew that.

It’s time to break up over this. Pose that medication question again.

So damn dumb.

 

Rare Honesty Reads Weirdly

He is so pleased as he takes my glass and places it neatly on a makeshift coaster of paper towels. I have been taking my medication with determined diligence and the results not only calm crying beasts inside of me but offer ease and peace to him. In his tidy perspective, impossible to be the objective machine he takes pride in being, our cozy world feels promising.  The present actions in the immediate surroundings of his life are calmer with me than he has known. I imagine he feels relief. I imagine he believes with sincerity that it’s possible to relax and let himself enjoy this reprieve of sorts … this pause of the emotional dysfunction that has persisted with ferocious tenacity from the woman he  adores, that woman being me. I have felt lucky. I have never felt anything but lucky for this adoration.

But here of late, there is a worry that shadow looms over my general gratitude. His peppy presumptions of promising prances through bright pastures in the sunbeams I despise is premature. He is blessedly unaware of what I spy with my suspicious eyes.

I have passed the madness to my lover. Something rotten brews within him and I find my self-control in handling it to be remarkably foreign. I zone not out, but through. He fits, snarls, and is unreasonable. His unsavory behavior is not unlike what I, too, have intimately known. But years of battling myself gave me the torturous self-awareness to know of all the ways I wasted time with confusing mental monsters taunting reality most inconveniently and unpredictably. He is a virgin to this mess. He is in a hell I have never been. I doubt my bravery to feel on my skin this blistering heat of his. I am a craven, yes. This I hiss in admittance.

My precious robot is malfunctioning. I wear no tool belt. My mechanic skills are nill, and this proud man has not a single suspicion of the unease he brings. It is the turn of my own tip-toes to callous lest they falter under his alarmingly acquired malice. His brash and reactionary flailing for me so unsettling. So selfishly I have laid down my own expectant needs for comfort, paraded babbling flags of verbal nonsense, and now I study faltering strides from he who is my everything. Why is my arm not raised, my hand outreached? I just stare and stress. I cry for new reasons and as silently as possible. What the fuck is this flip-flop? Where hides my coward eagerness to help this man who wears a brand new maniac mask?

Love, what a fickle fuck of a fuckless union you are. Universe- must it really be a trade off? My stability for his pleasant demeanor? Tell me I have finally attained the facetious nirvana of being neurotic.  I have overthought. I have overshared. Elimination of other painful people polluting my life was not drama enough?

Say this is a twist? Is my imagination wildly widening? Is he the same sane and patient man who massages my hand to ease me into sleep at night, and I have daydreamed this scenario where I am the mundane straight line who shuns the overplayed intensity for zen sincerity?

As I zone through and not out, hardly handling his ire healthily, I should confess that my eyes are redefining matter. They view reminders of memories I remember with a bit of jealously. Can I admit I love rage and will never bury my own- that watching him broil deadens me because I know the reason rage is right, I know there is a reason we are compelled to fight? I have long suspected that cruelty is masochistic foreplay of mine, with my frequent breakups and makeups. I believed my emotionally controlled robot and I were total “opposites attract” but perhaps two souls who like the teeter-tottering of strife and tender strokes have found one another. Perhaps this is my fairytale. Maybe I suddenly don’t mind as I type this.

Abuse blooms where pain surrenders. I ache as I claim the desire for warmth while cupping icy hands over cold breasts. The same hands I held in the freezing cold while watching with a morbid joy as the flesh turned from peach to blue. Do I do this for the concerned clutching of them between his own? Is he the rage I miss and so have created to placate the absence of this?

No, no. I dutifully swallow the help, the little pills that haven’t the time to humor suicide. And as they digest I watch the infectious malady of misaligned synapses scurry about him, he who is my everything in life. The first time this particular  weakness has ever from me existed. A sentiment never from my lips before formed in a sentence.  I like it, though, don’t I? I fancy this fearing of my robotic Romeo.

I will find any exquisite excuse to remain contrary to satisfied. Not all gifts are sagaciously perfumed for those of us who are titillated by blood and misuse, those of us who then melt into the arms of artful apologies.

The first rule of Fight Club: Only one crazy at a time.

 

Hey Mania, Time To Check In. Bring Chocolate.

I am in an isolating bubble of  paranoia and distrust. There is a sharp pin dangling above me. It is cleverly tied to the end of a balloon string. I only need to reach for this tiny dagger to pop this round, clear, magnifying hell. I desperately need to be on my name brand medicine. lamigotrine is not lamictal.

I let my stash run low and my reserves are the generic and this is the one drug where I have noticed not everything has an equally helpful, more cost-effective side-kick. If cats could speak and drive, I would have three side-kicks.

If cats could speak and drive, I would just charm them to go do my work for me so I could stay at home and paint away my inconvenient sadness and loneliness and I would not ever again have to fend off any creeping resentment towards the majority of my human family that rather pop pain pills and judge me- calling me an uppidy bitch because I have an intelligent boyfriend, with a damn good job, who fucking rocks it, and provides me with a beautiful home I already feel unworthy to sleep in. But fuck me, right? Fuck me for making jewelry and pet-sitting instead of having a “real job”? Reality is a blur for me, how much of a part should I have in operating it? Do you get behind the wheel with someone who cannot see two feet in front of them? Fuckkk

I am so vile to them that I cannot seek comfort when other parts of my family cease to exist, death deserves attention, respect of a memory, or when people I love  go through hell and climb out like a warrior (which both makes me proud for them and ashamed of my own self,) or when that other side of the family gets fucking dangerously crazy in their own right and I need someone to talk to that KNOWS them, too. Sometimes, I need comfort. And the thing is, motherfuckers, 7/10 times you only need to give me a few minutes. My fucked up brain bounces back to the bright side of things at often inappropriate times, so put down your pill bottle and pick up your phone. Develop telepathy and get this message before I forget how to transmit.

Do not utilize your life-sustaining uterus, or you virile sperm count unless you are psychic and you know for a fact you wont end up hating your own offspring. And don’t you goddamn dare shame a bitch for choosing not to biologically stamp herself out when there are kids here who already need LOVE. Tell me it’s selfish to not want to shit out some babies, tell me that one more time, please… I am growing out my nails just to peel your face off.

Rage Against The Machine: Anger is a gift.

It is motivation, something uncomfortable that forces movements for change, and I prefer anger to pathetic, worthless, unproductive, unappreciative sadness. I embrace my anger, I shun my disgusting self-pity. To each his own? Really? Then respect that in all regards. I am not strong with depression. I wish I were, obviously. But you know what, I sure as hell don’t wrinkle my nose when others experience it. We are human beings and we are in this shit together. That is the only thing that keep me from gaining height, turning grey, having my eyes transform to giant black orbs, and returning to the mother-ship.

But not really! Because guess what? People who are wear a name-tag of mental illness, it’s uncanny, they too, can be figurative in rants.

I know what I need to do, but I don’t do it. It’s nonsense. Go get my fucking proper meds, just do it, just fucking do it.

I am a lizard. Stress scales my body and my rashes are my unwanted mask.

When pot is legal and you can self-medicate without breaking the fucking law, and stoner-taxies become a thing, many of us will function much, much better. But until then, let us enjoy the stigma and paranoia and refrain from helpful herb. Make us masochists.

Thank you, internet, for your shoulder. I feel a bit better. Maybe my side-kick cats popped my bubble with their claws.

Please be so kind and gentle with your animal-friends. Love them, respect them. They worship you, trust you, and they forgive your faults.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perilous Plants With People Faces

That’s how I feel about those around me, as if I am walking in some fancy lady’s tea-sipping garden and atop those flower stems are familiar faces. I want to pluck them and press them between pages, preserving them for future fond memory-gazing.

All I desire from these souls is the ability to reflect happily upon the old times, those good times- the ones we made for smiling when we are very old.

Starting a blog was huge for me. I keep my secrets in seclusion. I do not enjoy talking to people and saying my label aloud. I have made a friend in the last couple of years that has no shame in saying the words. She makes being bi-polar look beautiful somehow. She is the first friend I have been comfortable conversing about the disorder with, and that’s likely because she is my first friend who suffers the same.

Many friends have been unintentionally hazardous to my health. I should pray, meditate, or take more vitamins. Then it will all go away, and I will be fine. The last time I went off my meds, as I was losing a slippery grip on my beloved sanity, a friend told me she was proud of me for tossing my magic pills. Every medicated motherfucker has had that impulse (or ten) to figuratively rip off their clothes and be free, naked and free. Wildly free. Your art is not the same, you want to feel yourself in your true form. You cannot have friends that encourage this if your mental nudity causes harm.

She didn’t know better. She is not a fan of education and therefor does not seek to further her own. Knowledge makes her curiously defensive, something that grew to bother me too much to keep the flame alive. I am casual with her now, and so much more comfortable.  Ignorance isn’t malicious but it’s certainly dangerous. Frankly, as I grow older, I lack the patience for those who choose blissful ignorance. What was once envy is now disgust.

I am a natural actress, but some call it being a liar. I am a writer. My joy is telling a story worth stealing a bit of someones attention. I have a small gift of knowing what people need me to say. I know what validations they need me to water, and I offer them all they need to quench their insecurity. Because of this small gift, I am highly functional socially. I have very close friends who truly think there is nothing wrong with me. The flattery certainly keeps away my arguing. Why would I insist I am not well? Why not bask in that moment of someone thinking you are delightfully balanced and sane? I bask indeed. I revel and roll all around in it.

You’re goddamn right, friend. I have my shit straight! Until you leave or hang up the phone …

It’s been a very difficult year. My emotions are not tormented by only my brain. External drama and trauma has burned fire inside of me. There has been heartache and fear. I have have been introduced to new and terrifying pains. And through my sobs, the only noise I hear is crickets. The friends for so many years that I held so dear were absent. I did not need them to have the gift of a good spin, I just needed their ears. Some blatantly betrayed  and others obliviously merged with their reflection, they became self-absorbed mirrors.

Then there is my family. My dissolving family that divides bitterly, and multiplies irreparable resentment. The closeness once among us baffles my comprehension of the present. I fought like a wild wolf to preserve even a semblance of loving unity. I failed hard. So hard that most of them can fade away and I already said my goodbyes. I would not watch the slow dissolving of atoms even for curiosities sake. I gave up and retired all interest of their existence. Without my family I feel as though the inherent loneliness I was born with was preparation for the eventual abandonment. I am appreciative of that preparation.

Fuck drugs. Fuck jealousy. And fuck the fuck out of feeling like the world owes you even a small goddamn thing. Let those things make you turn on your kindred? Well then, fuck you.

An attempted guilt-trip would be in vain. The fight of a wild wolf is exhausting. You may only have one family, as so many are want to insist, but it is also true that within you there is only one true fight of a wild beast. I am spent.

Exhaustion does not dim the deep gratitude for the newer developed relationships I am lucky to have garnered. And I have my cat-babies, my boyfriend, and a beautiful home. On bad days of late I do not feel sorry for my self, I hate my self. It’s much more manageable.

How can I feel sorrow when I am so lucky? Old friends are old wounds and new friends keep the flesh from scarring. My cats worship me. My robotic, emotionally-controlled boyfriend is the strength I need around me. My home is my own and the walls are mine for the drawing. And I do draw on my walls with glee, a giant canvass. There is no censorship or restriction.

Starting this blog has been the very best therapy. Connecting with the entries of strangers who speak a language I understand has made me wish I could reach through the screen and hand each writer a small ‘thank you’ note. I appreciate so much much the collective exchange of honesty and vulnerability. It’s ultimate bravery. It’s a giant comfort hive. I see inside the minds of people I have never met and I feel as if I am properly introduced to myself. I understand a bit better the parts of myself that sully a good day at random. I am not a freak anomaly.

I can now press those old flower faces between book pages and move right on feeling lighter in a world where the colors a little bit brighter.

Tomorrow is uncertain, of course. Even this evening cannot be known… but I have found an avenue that calms me down, tempers an often terrifying certainty that I do not belong on this planet, that I am an alien all alone.  And right now in this moment, I feel okay. Feeling okay feels pretty fucking great. Knowing that others know exactly what I mean by that is damn near divine.

I just want to say thanks.

Provocative Popsicles Never Melt

That thing you did that amassed fire still sizzles.

Most may wonder to whom you directed the mess. The rest are want to assume they were your muse as they writhe within the honesty you carelessly threw. Let them have their little wobbles, those rapid and jerky movements are their wagging tongues. Their mouths beg for a drink.

If you desire to remedy the thirst of those you humor, pour wisely. How tall and proud you are to know your cup carries enough. How wise and strong you are to carry that ridiculous goblet.

Placate at your own peril. Tomorrow you may wake up as your other person, the other you who is sick to death of the artful arrows you toss around you. The other you is ready to rig them with poisoned tips and teach you a thing or two. The other you has those same big, wide eyes so don’t even try.

Maybe it’s time you learn that there is something worse than having what you do follow you. Stagnation is true torture. What you say and do can absolutely bind you to a place you merely visited on a whim. Your thoughtless spatter of artillery is not a pretty place to be when permanent placement is your brain’s retaliation.

 

 

Do You Want To Catch The Mouse Or Taste The Mouse?

That hunt. What skill you strut, fine predator. You are focused. You are doing what you are meant to do. Fine-tune that do that you do so diligently. Paws maw at the scurrying dinner, poor feller. 

Success! You bested the scampering morsel. Caught- he is within your claw cage. The only escape is your approaching mouth, framed by fangs. 

You have now chewed so long that your dinner begins to digest. You want for something. You were deprived the beautifully beastly flavor of your meal. How can a full belly be so unsatisfying? 

You took your pill so you could act like a cat. But that pill dulled your tasting pleasure. 

There is no contest. You forsake the succulent trickle of deliciousness in your mouth because the truth is, you love mice. You hate yourself as a killer. 

So pop your pill, swallowing the guilt, and dine on bland bones. You have to eat.  

Paranoid Pie With A Scoop Of Guilt

A meteor falls from the sky, crushes your bones, and with your dying last breath you  squeak, “Shame on me for stepping in the path of that poor, plummeting thing.”

Not really though, because you aren’t that blatant in your attempt to seem innocent. You are not so engulfed in maintaining the appearance of being harmless, that you devote  succumbing to eternal silence with saintly nonsense. You are not desperate for a pious death. You are not committed to the illusion of a wholesome existence to the point of sacrificing your last breath for sanctimonious bullshit.

You do, however, lay awake in your bed and wonder if it was your fault. Was whatever way the sky fell that day something caused by you? Could you have handled the surprise attack with a little more tact of your own? Was it necessary to tear the face off  your friend who only spews jealous gibberish about your mate because of her loneliness? You don’t think it’s possible the tacky bank lady was just having the worst damn day of her life without your retort? Are you the only person who has tough moments?  Did you select the absolute worst time to take that stand and start that revolution? Yeah, dip. Think about it, and don’t fall asleep until you are well aware you are awful.

You are the artist of so many mistakes, you do your very best to avoid signing your name. No one seeks your autograph. People simply need to know who gets the bill, a bill with a long list of effortless errors. You are remarkable at messing up. You are damned if you do and damned more because you usually do. Don’t attempt to deflect failure, stick with what you are good at. Keep them comfortable in their judgments.

What is the best thing about you? You give remarkably sincere apologies. You make things that are long dead weep with emotion. Your earnest groveling is deeply touching to things on high shelves, far from reach. When you say you are sorry, an echo of forgiveness ripples through a room of clenched fist and arms instead raise to embrace. You convincingly display your sincere regrets. You are able to immediately lower levels of intense displeasure.

And why are you so good at this? It is the mountain of bills in lieu of autographs. You have a saddening amount of practice, but most importantly the apology is genuine.Your heart hurts when you fail to add more pleasure than displeasure to a very complicated and heavy world. You know how often you disappoint.

Then what is so maddening about the constant complaints cast your way? What about them makes you now so defensively insane?

It is the mere fact that despite it usually being deserved and often times well earned, this time you truly did not do anything wrong at all.

Sometimes the accusation is too appalling to acknowledge.

Sometimes the condemnation hurled at you is too disturbing to sit through.

The biggest reason for your fit, though, your wildly loud denial, your violent insistence that you should be free of this insulting palaver persecution?

It is simple. You are disgusted with yourself.

You fabulously fuck up so much that even when you are on the opposite side of the earth from the scene of the crime, it’s still your face up on display. Perpetual mugshot of the constant suspect. Such a common interrogation that you cannot help it, it’s autopilot, you are seemingly ingrained to accept it, make a confession, but dammit you didn’t do it.

You resent the familiar shame of this game. You know quite well how it feels to deserve it and you cling to these moments when you know you don’t carry that burden. So why wouldn’t you fight it? Don’t they know by now you have no pride to spare for time-wasting denials? You never make them chase you. As if you have not disappointed enough, they want to add liar to your unpaid bill?

They claim they don’t believe you are telling the truth. These morality soldiers that are ever present when your mistakes are made are dictators of human behavior. The power has gone to their head. They want to get into yours and tinker around. They are bored because they are just so boring.

Some who cling to their sanity badge tend to fight the dirtiest of all. They fight like cowards as they stand behind the barely-binding social norms that give them the privilege to walk free of a label. Anyone who sits still long enough to have their mind analyzed  will end up with their own invisible stigma leash. There is a chair for them.

It is alarming how many would prefer to feed poisonous language to self-conscious and confused minds simply to avoid admitting their own faults, to avoid admitting when they are so wrong. They want you to talk to them about “it,” and hear your vulnerable secrets. They feel superior for a moment in the land of their bland pride. They are either willfully ignorant or they are sadistic.

Be cautious of either group. Some rely on your guilt to get away with their manipulation, and others are too dumb to know their unsolicited advice is dangerous. The worst aspect in the revelation of their meddling self-interest is knowing they can bank on the fact, any day of the week, that no matter what they do, you are the one who will be wide-awake late in your bed worrying and battling guilt. Was it your fault?

This is why you think twice before divulging the workings of your brain to some people. You cannot trust people, nor expect them to understand. It’s not fair to expect them to. Sometimes they will end up in one of those two potentially dangerous groups where it isn’t an initial goal, but they take advantage. And frankly, when they press, and you share, it’s very difficult to not feel a strong sting when one day you realize, “Wait! Has this person asked me one time this month in the midst of their humdrum stream of needs to dissect their own shit, how I have been?” And that is the first step to the damn dangerous and ugly path to the dreaded bitterness. Was this friend always more self-absorbed than you noticed or was it your fault for letting them think it’s okay to pretend you are their diary that happens to have a heartbeat?