Reflection

I stare across the room and meet the eyes of a stranger. It’s funny how you think you can know a person so deeply, only to find that you know absolutely nothing about her at all. I have known her my whole life, been there to hold her hand when no one else would, wiped her tears, talked her out of hitting or cutting or hurting herself in any other physical way she might have come up with. The only thing I was never able to reach was how she was feeling emotionally. It’s easy to grab someone’s hand away to physically stop her from doing something harmful to herself, but when it comes to the emotional turmoil we are all somehow capable of creating, no one can stop that but the person who is experiencing it. No matter how hard we try, you can’t fix something you had no idea was even broken.

I’ve carried this conversation in my head for years and I’ve never had the nerve to tell her how I feel. No matter how many times I’ve heard myself or other people tell her how beautiful she is, both inside and out, how thin she is, how creative and talented she is. She never listens. She always has a quick comeback whether critical or comical, the compliment is never taken.

I have watched the look on her face suddenly change from a girl having a good time, to complete distress because someone else in her group just commented on how skinny another girl in the room is or how the dress she just tried on shows off her curves. “I don’t want curves”, she exclaims, and the comment is ignored or laughed off because she’s being silly and must truly know how any 30 year old woman would kill to have her body.

I listen to her stories of one failed relationship after another and how she thought this one was “the one” and how she never meant to cheat….”Is kissing another guy, while dating a different one considered a form of cheating?” I never imagined her type of girl to cheat on anyone or to even get past second base before marriage.

I realize why she enters one relationship after another, knowing full well that the reason she chooses the types of guys she dates is because they all have some sort of issue(s) that needs to be worked through. “I want to help him. I can change him. I know he’s a good person inside. He’s got so much potential. “

I’ve heard every excuse.

And the truth is, the only reason she dates these guys is because it distracts her from focusing on herself and her own problems that she needs to face.

But I keep quiet. I don’t tell her that. I just sit there beside her and hope that one day, she will learn before it’s too late.

But it’s almost too late. She’s at a crossroads and she has to make a decision. Will she stay or will she go?

I look across the room and I don’t recognize this girl anymore. I’ve known her my whole life and she is nothing but a stranger to me now. I look down at the wine glass in my hand and before thinking; I throw it straight in front of me, smashing the mirror that was once staring back at me.

I don’t want to know this girl anymore. We are no longer as close as we used to be and yet somehow, some way, she keeps trying to contact me and all I want to do is yell “GO AWAY!!”

Go away stranger….

And never come back. 

"And they rise in the morning
And they sleep in the dark
And even though nobody's looking
She's falling apart"

Lisa Loeb