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.

Tea with Mr. Wilde and God

I like my life.

It is small and quiet and often times difficult. I can't really afford much, but there is always enough, every time. I have a handful of close friends here and the circle gets smaller every time life changes. There are healthy good byes and less healthy good byes and there are a lot of far away people that I love very much. But my handful of people that I hold here know me and I like to believe that the depth of love and the miles of life we have covered together is more than a fair trade for the small number. I am ever so slowly learning how to be a healthy human being before God and learning enough about myself to figure out where I want to go. The questions are not all answered, but I am sure that I will have them when I need them. I really do like my life, the people in it, and where I am going.

I need to remember that sometimes. It is so easy to forget in the natural process of moving forward and changing and growing and striving. It can be so easy to lose sight of such a quiet feeling while I am reacting to deadlines and people I like and people I don't especially when those two people are actually the same person. But right now, in the Sunday quiet of my house with too many too busy people, before all of the trying to be who I am becoming starts, and before I begin to take on all of the descriptors for the roles I will play today, I want to remember that I really do like where I am at.

I think life would be a lot less stressful if I could hold onto that while I race through my days. I think I would be better at remembering that if I gave myself the time in the mornings that I promised God I would. It's like he knows what I need, like he's on my side trying to help me first, be healthy and second, stay healthy. Weird.

But I am fighting so hard to be so good that I forget that I do not have to fight him. In fact, most of the fighting I do is fighting that he would gladly do for me if I would just stand on the promises he has made and let him fight for me. As long as I am fighting, however, he stands aside so he doesn't hurt me... so that I know he is there after I beat myself up. I do a fine job of that even during this part of my life that I like so well.

Today, I woke up two hours before I needed to be awake after a whole night of dreaming that everything that I need to do in the next three weeks needed to happen and be finished tomorrow. I was so frustrated and anxious that I could not sleep and then I realized that I was probably going about life wrong again. I was probably fighting too hard when there wasn't really a fight to be had. So today here is what I need to remember (and what I will likely need to know again and again for the rest of my life):

I am loved and I am learning how to love. I am loved by God and by the people he places around me and most days, I don't get to know why. But I do get to know that that is enough. "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

One final thought for the rest of today, "Who being loved, could be poor?" [Oscar Wilde]

what I have left

The walls are better at listening than you or I are
And I guess this is due to their immobility
And lack of lips and mouth and tongue to fill the air between us.
Their spatial awareness is superior to either of ours,
Like how many words it takes to fill the room
And tip the emotional scale,
until there is not Oxygen enough for after thoughts like human lungs.
I have never seen a wall's proverbial ears
but I suppose this is not their only secret.

----------yep. I wish I had more; but that's going to have to do for now.

Scott

I met Scott on the max Saturday. He was homeless and travelling to I'm-not-really-sure-where. I was meeting up with friends. He made a bit of small talk in the slightly-less-than-stable way that homeless men tend to though he managed coherency.

He greeted me and made a quip about the space in the tram (which really wasn't crowded). When I smiled and responded, he began talking about how he still has his sense of humor if nothing else. His words were hurried as if he were afraid that his time in my attention had already run out and I would soon become mindful of this and turn away. A few seconds of silence passed as he squatted down in the bike zone near the wall opposite me. He complimented my eyes and my sunglasses. He liked the way they were accentuated without being exposed, like a mystery.

And then shame.

He became quick to tell me he was too old (56 years) to think of me that way, that I did not have to worry. He just meant to compliment me. I reassured him that I was not freaked out and I watched as all of him relaxed. I asked his name and he looked up at me to say, "Scott" and then ask mine. We filled the space that followed with mutually believed commentary on how Americans are too stand-off when they travel and do not know how to have time for the people around them. (I am pretty sure that we bewildered the people around us to pieces, he and I.) He thanked me for my time and told me he was tired of talking to himself, that he missed conversation. He expounded on the dichotomy of security and freedom saying that if we never take any risks we lose our freedom. And again, when we seek security over freedom, we lose both.

And I listened. Through my aviators, across the max, I listened for the whole of maybe 5 or 10 minutes. And then he did what almost every homeless man I talk to does.

Scott told me that he liked my confidence. He likes the way I carry myself boldly, comfortably but not offensively. As he was talking, I passed my stop so I went over to shake his hand. He continued complimenting and encouraging me gently but firmly, not rushed to let all of his words fall out like he was when we first met ten minutes prior. Scott said that I shouldn't worry, I have a lot more figured out than I think I do, I've just got to keep the faith.

I do not feel that I really know what it is that he and Mike and Dave and Richard see in me. And I do not know why they all tell me the same things: confidence. faith. don't worry. i'm headed in a good direction. Always. And always men around the age of 55. And almost always, homeless. It is like they know that I do not trust myself in the least on my bad days.

In some unconventional way, we need each other. People like me and people like Scott. We need to have someone hand us back our humanity from whatever dark place it has been cast and let us rest awhile in friendly conversation. We cannot waste time because we only have 4 or so max stops for our familiarity to mature. I would have gladly spent more time with him to hear about the family he alluded to and just to watch him become more human.

Some of us are more visibly and more desperately clinging to our humanity than others. Scott is one of them. Too many people will never give him a real name...just labels and titles and shadows to live in. They wont remember seeing him. They are likely to be offended if he spoke to them. He is on the streets because he is alone. For whatever reason, he has lost or severed all the ties that might have caught him. I cannot help but use people like him to measure society against because the heart of a nation can be seen in how they treat their outcasts.

We are offended by them. We do not understand them and we do not have the time to. And it breaks me. I saw so many other people that same day. A homeless woman through the window yelling and crying in the corner of a building. A beggar working the St. Patrick's crowd. A woman and her pimp. Stories writhing without pages.

I had been told that the most meaningful things you can give to a homeless person, should reason and security allow, are an identity and a little human contact. And it is funny the way can you know something that has been told to you and still be blown away by it in real and living life. He never asked for money. He just wanted to talk, to remember, and to be without being alone. And he did not take my time even, because he gave too. I am bewildered by what he said to me, but I treasure it too. And I hope to understand.