I. When A Good Friend Decides to Lie to You
followed by
II. Why I Am Nobody's Best Friend


I.
When a good friend decides to lie to you, listen. Listen closely.

You will learn a lot more about them from the kind of lies they tell than from any truth they may share on that deceitful day.

For example, she does not trust you, is drowning in her pride, and likes it.

For example, he does not know he is lying, really thinks you will always be friends, and cannot see that you have not been friends in years.

For example, she thinks your silence is belief rather than grief, thinks you love the lies, thinks you prefer them. She laughs when you say you value honesty like oxygen, thinks she knows better than you.

Listen!
Listen closely. Why? Because they are telling you how it will end. They are telling you what version of themselves they think you want. They are telling you exactly what is most important to them.

Take it all in.

You already knew you were not important. Do not let this be about you. Do not let them surprise you or incite you. You are not here to lie. You are not here to compete. You are here to listen.

Listen. When the liars walk in, pull up a chair, and feed you to nausea--listen!

Listen to every word.

They are drawing you an inverted map. If you listen long enough, they will color in everything except for the place where they keep their heart.

Listen even closer when the lies grow denser, more palatable, sweeter. They will always be what you want to hear. Do not touch them. Only listen. See if you can't find  the echo of truth in the shadow of each new lie.

When the map is complete, bury it. No. Wait. Copy it. Bury the first copy like the treasure that it is. Then give the copy to the friend. You just might lead him back to himself. Or else, she will only see her portrait.

II.
When I decide to tell you that I know you have been lying to me, I say "I'm sorry" to you for weeks afterwards in empty hallways and as I drive myself to work. I know my apologies never get to you, but I cannot exactly deliver them after our last conversation went so badly.

I know that I was selfish. I have apologized for that every time I have seen your photo on social media. But I wanted you to know that I was not fooled. I wanted you to feel how nauseous I felt trying to swallow so much untruth. I wanted you to know that your lies offended my intelligence. I wanted you to know that you are a terrible liar.

When I asked for the truth, I wanted you to choose me. See the second you sat down with me and brought lies, I realized that I was not the right kind of important anymore. I wanted to fix it. I wanted us to be good friends. So I dressed my intentions up in their best shades of concern.

I apologized in the bathroom at work for not being patient enough to let you find your way back on your own. I tried to give you a map even though it wasn't complete. You couldn't think of a use for it. Instead of bringing us closer, oceans flooded in with new, uncharted territories on their tides.

I have said "I'm sorry" twenty-six times on the freeway since we last talked. Each time, I was thinking of how I could have listened just a little longer.

As it turns out, I loved truth more than you. And that is something I am still unable to apologize for even though I keep practicing.

seeing

I was a photographer once.

And once, I was the friend of a girl who could only see the stars. We left each other because I could not live in the dark while she was blind but for the stars.

I have always wished I could take photos exactly as I see them. But I cannot, you see, I cannot. I cannot make that glass eye record my interpretation. I could fit a world onto a blade of grass, but the camera does not see a world. It sees a blade of grass. I can manipulate the frame, the color, the light, the physical context; but that world is only there for those of us who do not need a camera to see these things. I cannot teach that glass eye to see.

It is often like that with people too.

I wish I could make that girl see herself the way I saw her, brilliant and all lit up with stars as if she herself were one of them. I can manipulate the pace, the tone, the words, our physical context; but that brilliant girl can only see the way she always has before. My eyes are as foreign as glass ones. She cannot see the world she herself carries within her.


It would seem, I cannot teach anything to see.

But I have to wonder, does that matter? I would like it to. But the fact is, I keep on seeing just as I have before. There are worlds I study, and those which I myself ignore. And I guess, if I give over teaching, I may be taught how to see.

vivid auburn

Judgment? Accountability?

I'm not sure anymore how to draw lines around those two words that can be agreed upon by those who matter most in my life. I do not know how to appease my conscience either. But mostly, I do not know how to help people around me.

I am no longer naive enough to believe that I can fix people and make them better. I have been there, and it is somewhere I hope to never be again when I am most honest. It costs too much for no lasting benefit to anyone involved. Yet, I am not ready to pack up and announce that it is every man for himself.

I will not do more than the person is willing to do for themselves...but we can do so much more with the help of those around us.

The last year especially has really tested where I stand when I have to put flesh on all of these thoughts and go about living in a less than idealistic world. Once having decided that it is still good, despite the abuses of people in the past, where do you go? Mainly, what does one do when the rules suddenly change? When people begin talking out of both sides of their mouths...asking you to help them be 'better' and then dismissing your every attempt and intervention as caustic judgment, which apparently is akin to betrayal on a most fundamental level...what then?

Do you listen to who they were when they first asked for accountability?

Do you listen to them when they elaborate on your close-mindedness and faulty judgments?

Do you get any points for trying?

I think I will fall back on my usual "do what you can...and then let go because you aren't responsible for what you can't do."

Home

This is what I saw after a very long night on the bus from Montana to Portland, Oregon. It should have been a train ride, but the train was frozen someplace out east. I suppose the bus was not as bad as I imagined it would be. Besides, the road rides the Columbia closer than the train tracks at some points, and that makes it well near worth it.

It was beautiful to look out and realize it was getting to be light outside and to know that I was almost home. The ten or more hours I had already endured worked to create a sleepy peace. It was then that I realized how relative a term 'home' had become for me. I had left home, to go home...and I found no contradiction. Home with all of the family and friends and people that I knew and loved. Home with all of the accepted idiosyncrasies that have been built into me, that I take elsewhere and that often show that I am from somewhere else. Home.

There are layers and layers to that word. The longer I live and the more I move about, the more homes I acquire. It does not matter if all of the memories are pleasant. Home is where you speak the language, where you respond naturally to those microscopic aspects of culture. There was a time when Montana was home and I lived there. It was good to go back. When I am there, it is home. Yet, I am going to school in Oregon and it is becoming home. I am learning new quirks and meeting new friends and, indeed, new family. In a few years, I will move from here and make a new home.

I wonder how many homes I will have in my lifetime. That is a terrifying thought to me because all of my homes occupy a piece of me; and they will never know each other. I am being parceled out, and I cannot protect all that I love. Therefore, I cannot protect myself. The act of leaving may be wrapped in a romantic mystery, but there is something about coming that makes you vulnerable. You have to prepare for both, I think or it is harder to adjust, to fall in love with the place you go to for its own sake. It is more dangerous that way, because you can be hurt more; but in my drowsy state, as I looked out the window and thought of the hundreds of miles I had traveled in a single night, I decided that it is better. Anytime, you get the opportunity to love something that may or may not love you back, do it. If all that stands in your way is fear, do not let that stop you.