what it is

Is it me? Is it really impossible to believe anything anyone says? Once it's in their self-interest, they'll change and adapt their positions to suit whatever it is they want, regardless of principles, or past statements of allegiance to or repulsion by the thing they can magically now fit into their lives.

This is a chance, it's a test. To disengage. I have to remember to calm myself and not link-link-link this up with the past. To disembowel it before it grows into something more significant than it is. Because it's not. It wasn't aimed at me, and if it was, fuck 'em. I am a tall tree.

It would just be nice to be able to believe anything anyone said, to depend on it, without, somewhere down the line, having it unravel and slap you in the face unexpectedly. Everything makes sense in the context of self-interestedness. Everyone acts calculating to get a payoff.

But some parts of me are dinging and lighting up; the hypothesis planted and hibernating inside me has, once again, been confirmed: you can't ever really trust anyone.

It can be rewarding; it can polish up and smooth out and hydrate your life. It can be a welcome respite from drudgery, from strangers' scowls and bristly acquaintances. But it always has an edge. The more you care, the more open you are, the bigger the inevitable wound. Nothing is constant. Everyone is changing. The only consistent thing, the only person I can hold onto, is my love. He's steady and unwavering. "'Come in,'" he said, "'I'll give ya shelter from the storm.'"

Perhaps this is why people take refuge in their other, in their partner, in their person. It's not as if my babe doesn't, sometimes, put his needs above my own. Of course he does - this is central to self-sustenance, to survival. Friends seem never not to think of their effect on you though, that is the difference. It's always about what meets their needs, even at your (obvious) expense. I think I (must?) relate to people differently than the way most people do; I get attached, I weave threads between myself and the other, I link into him or her. The distaste comes when these ties are cut, by pointy words or thoughtless actions, on purpose or unintentionally. I missed some rudimentary developmental phase where we learn the ability to reattach and get over it, it would seem.

The Two Fridas, Frida Kahlo 1939

This is my internal nemesis. I'm flummoxed sometimes, when friends, and people in general, are unkind. When they treat you badly. It's impossible to know how to react properly to such an affront; my strongest urge, inclination, instinct is to recoil and renounce. To flout attachment. I know this reaction is unwarranted; I can see it, floating in my mind and taking up an undue amount of space. It's too big! It's burdensome and unjustified. Mantra mantra mantra: nothing is personal. It's not about my ego. They're acting this way because of them; it has nothing, fundamentally, to do with me. I'm just an object. A thing in the mix. Something to bounce their stuff off of. We're all just trying to do the best we can.

I wonder if anyone else has a similar inability to process friendly fire.

And a parting thought: we all grow out of people, sometimes.