Friend or Foe, or Both?
We've all had at least one in our lives: friend-turned-enemy who, upon running into, we make sure to look the other way in the hallways/on the street/on the walls of facebook. (Well, maybe not then.) Whether the breakup was tearful and emotional, tempestuous and mean, or simply a matter of time, it turns out the benefits far exceed the fleeting friendship. Enjoy.
This is a very hard essay to tackle. I don't recall being attacked as a child, but I do remember not being very popular, painful in itself. That made me feel very vulnerable, always worried I would make some faux pax that would speed up my descent down the social scale or make me vulnerable to some additional humiliation. (Being an outsider was humiliating in itself.)Summers were an enormous relief because I didn't have to live in that 24 hour state of tension for ten months. It made me a protective parent (some will say overly protective) and I absolutely know it was connected to being an outsider until I got to college. College was the other end of the spectrum, but that is a conversation for another day.
ReplyDeleteI can't tell if what makes this post so great is that you're an awesome sister, or really good writer. But it's probably just both.
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