Lisa

Her idea of friendship can seem one sided.

I suppose she would say the same of me if asked.

I mean doesn’t everyone see their own side when things go bad?

Why doesn't she ever offer.. to pay. to place the call, to organize things?
..never.

She sits in the background, out in the open waiting,  

She dares the etiquette in each one of us to take the higher ground..

Passively casting emotional threats  ~ unsaid but present.

We do take the higher ground and avoid conflict.  Our good upbringing and manners have us hardwired to avoid conflict even when it’s uncomfortable, but it is present none the less…hanging there like smoke in a still room.

She is smart but has trouble beginning sentences.  It’s as though all of her thoughts are trying to get out of her at once.

Every once in a while a glimmer of the hurt little girl comes through. 

For an instant empathy takes hold. 

Then she doesn’t offer and you’re reminded.

She is a contradiction between vulnerability and bravado.
She acts like she doesn't care what others think but hangs on every word, taking it deeply into her, and storing it away for another time or conversation.

Over a lifetime I have learned that it is tiring to love Lisa.  
She is someone who’s glass is never ½ full. Her angst has become ritual.
Her pain spills over into the outside. 
She arrives to each and every conversation baggage in hand. 
I have begun to notice that it’s as if the air gets sucked out of the room when she speaks, and her pain spills over into the outside.

I have tried to help her unpack her luggage.  
To unburden her soul. 
I have tried to carry her baggage, but the weight of my own fills my arms and leaves me with no space to fit anything else.

More times than most she speaks through text. Half complete sentences and phrases, requiring you to ask for clarification – drawing you farther into that room where the air had been sucked out earlier.

I love her, but increasingly as time goes on, I am faced with a Gulf that has grown between us. 
I am not sure we will be able to get back to where we were. 
So much water fills the gulf now and as time passes the current gets stronger.

For now I will avoid swimming upstream and remain on the beach, soaking up the sun on the side lines. Time is on my side.