Chipped Away

It started out small, you could barely notice anything was happening. It was one moment of anger amidst a million moments of laughter and it was hesitantly welcomed with a sense of discomfort from both parties involved. Sporadically, periodically, every now and then, once in a blue moon, but soon, these rarities turned into the norm. What was once an unforeseen scream turned into a series of seemingly unending spats and before I knew it you were gone. I lived in denial of the truth, but how could I not, it was so new. I blamed you. I was still me and I was still happy with that. I just thought it was different with you because you weren’t just a friend. I naïvely thought it could never end. But when it did, I turned to those I still had who loved me, or so I thought. But no more than a month later it happened again. Before I could catch my breath from the day you took the wind out of me, I realized I let someone else walk away unscathed. I however, felt a shake. As if the ground I stood upon shook I felt my legs give way and I tripped. And soon another three took their chance to escape me. They sat me down and told me how it was and I took their words and let them in and become a part of me. At this my world really did crumble. I looked in the mirror and saw myself, pieces of who I am and who I was and all I ever wanted to be falling right off of me. They fell fast, they fell hard, and when I reached down to pick them up they only turned to dust, which slipped through my fingertips. When I stood back up and looked once again at the remains of who I had become I saw the places where your words chipped away at my heart and my soul. And suddenly I put it all together. I added up all of the players in every equation and solved for the only common denominator, me. So I saw the problem and I tried to fix it in the only way I knew how. I offered a warning to those whom I now encountered sharing with them the only possible path this friendship would take, and when I did I doomed myself further, subconsciously scaring them away and stirring things just enough for trend to emerge once again. And not too long after these warnings did the end come. And though this time was only a mere fissure, the same feelings of hate were forced to the surface, and this time I couldn’t force them back down or hide them behind the shards of pottery I myself was constructed of. And now a year has passed and I am left with nothing but my cracked self and the dust of who I was at my feet.

It’s easy to run away from your problems until your problem is yourself, then there is no escaping it. And when it was just the one who left, I could handle it. But as two, three, and four all walked out the door I was no longer able to walk in the light that I was a good person or that I liked who I was. With every goodbye I was fed a new idea of the person I’d become, a person less than worthy of friendship. You know what they say, the more a person tells you something about yourself the more you start to believe it. Well now 12 months later I’m convinced. Each time I was turned away from, my former best friend didn’t leave without taking a chisel to my side and cutting out piece of my soul, compromising my integrity and leaving me weak until eventually I became nothing at all.

So I guess I never realized how much you broke me, but now I’m running from anything that could make me happy. That very first day we had that very first fight I was already loosing pieces of myself, they were just too small to notice right away. And now my pillow has seen more tears than nights of sleep. It all started with you and from there only grew. And I know that not a single one of them is to blame. I brought this upon myself. Though I still often live in the illusion that I’m only now left damaged from these unproductive encounters, I am starting to see that I’ve always been damaged goods. And because of this I’m actively avoiding letting anyone in. I’ll keep those around me at arms length but draw them in no closer, which I’m sure you can guess is a hard task for an extrovert as extroverted as me, but then again, that’s just another flaw.

I’m not sure that anyone who’s ever turned from me knows the impact they’ve had on my life, and I’m sure it was none of their intentions, but in the wake of my former friends I’m left drowning with no way up for air. I’m not sure who I am or what I’ve become, but the one thing I do know for sure is that I’m not happy with the person that dwells in this body I cannot escape from. Do I like myself? No. Do I wish everyday I was someone else? Yes. In a way, I’m jealous of all of those who got to walk away, because that is my wish everyday. But while they got to get out without any fallout for them, I don’t make off so easy. Because despite the general consensus, your mistakes really do make you who you are, for better or for worse.

[alc]