thirty-one: the crazy one

Hmmm the title I gave this one is nicer than what it ought to be, but alas enough time has passed where I see her and I feel indifferent. Sometimes I even feel a tinge of curiosity to see where exactly she is these days. I could give her some nasty labels, but it's not really worth my energy. She used to be someone I looked up to. She put on a great show of being the perfect daughter, sister, friend. From the outside you'd think she had it all together, but slowly through the years she grew bitter and we grew apart. I think back to when we were both young and probably a tad big naive and we were kind of the same. I could see a lot of myself in her, except for her outward anger.

She lashed out at me more than once, and while a good scolding may have been justifiable under the circumstances she always lacked the manners to do it in the appropriate time and place. I've always wondered why she felt a need to publicly shame others. Maybe it was her way of asserting dominance and power. Maybe she just lacked that bit of social grace. Maybe she just didn't care that from an outsiders point of view it is almost never ok to make someone cry on a bus full of people. It's also not ok to broadcast to the church what wrongs you suspect of someone. You should also never go over to your friend's house in rage and terrorize her to the point where years have passed but you were the only person in your family left off the wedding invite list. Interrogating your younger brother's crush also crosses some strange boundaries that  did more harm than good. 

I know the truth is you never saw yourself the way you should have. You struggled with your self-worth, identity,  and you were too proud to ask for help. It was always better to put on the brave face, then to admit defeat. It was always better to pretend things were ok then to admit that they weren't. It was always easier to point out other people's faults then realizing that the very things you point out in them are the things you despise about yourself. 

There's a dream you've always held on to, and it's about to be fulfilled, and I hope you realize soon that it's not as hyped up as you think it is. It's one day, which is in a way a cumulation of the past days but it is certainly no predictor of future days. I hope for you it does bring you lots of happiness and joy, but that one day you find that others cannot give you continual feel-good feelings. Other people will disappoint you, and you will disappoint them, and it's ok. I think that's where we parted ways because you would hold on too tightly to the negative feelings instead of letting them go and acknowledging that humans by nature will hurt each other. Maybe one day when you push yet another person away forever you'll start to see that more clearly. But for the sake of those around you, I hope it doesn't come to that. I wish I could say I see a faint glimpse of what used to be good in you, but you've rejected that side of you and buried it deep.

Next time when I see you I'll continue to smile, because despite all you've done for me I'm still in a good place. You've helped toughen me up, oddly enough. Thankfully not too much though because there was a time where I was probably a few bad decisions away from turning into someone I don't want to be.