Now I Know Why They Call It A Falling Out

You get real comfortable there, teetering on those high, high heels you’ve finally conquered, standing on your expensive rug or your self-made mountain or your personal pulpit. Finally, all of your hard work has paid off and you’re where you want to be. It’s like Mama Rose is always singing in your ear that everything’s coming up roses! What could go wrong.

It’s easy to get cocky. It’s easy to get comfortable, way up there atop your perch of perfection. You worked for this shit. You’re digging in your heels. This is your place and nobody can make you move. No one would dare knock you down a peg.

And then someone grasps the corner of the ground you stand on and gives it a big, evil tug and it all goes crashing down like Jericho around you.

Now I know why they call it a falling out. The earth beneath your feet just gives way.

It happens so fast. Things are perfectly all right until suddenly, they’re not. Do you remember that scene in “A Little Princess,” where the balloon bobs about in an empty room and suddenly pops, shattering the stillness? That’s what it feels like.

When the people you love most in the world hurt you, well, that’s the worst pain imaginable. It blindsides you, as though someone with a sharp sword has snuck up behind you and sliced off your ear.

People you love are not supposed to hurt you. That’s the rules of love. Love is supposed to keep you safe, happy, all swaddled up like an infant.

Unfortunately, people are fucked up. No matter how much you love someone, how near and dear they are to your heart, they can hurt you. You forget about it because you choose to believe in friendship, in trust, in bonds that aren’t supposed to be broken. But in the end, everyone’s always looking out for their own best interest. People are fucked up, and people are above all purely, unapologetically selfish.

But you know that! You’re an adult. You know that nobody’s perfect, that shit happens. You just didn’t think it would happen to you. You didn’t think that this person, this person you trusted, loved, spent all your time with, could do this to you. Is it fair to be angry at them for choosing love over friendship? Can you even put yourself in their shoes?

The truth is that you can’t possibly see it from the other side until the rage subsides, until you stop crying at random intervals and starving yourself in grief and protest. Your emotions start to blind you.

Your pens are full of poison. The laundry list of “fuck yous” grows longer and longer by the minute.

You can’t possibly do anything until you calm down. You know that now. You know that after years of experiences like this, that if someone corners you “to talk,” you’ll only come out with claws sharp and teeth bared and hands swiping at them like a feral cat. That’s how your heart feels: feral. Lost. Wild.

Did you have it coming? Of course not. No one ever “has it coming.” But now you’ve really learned your lesson: just when everything’s coming up roses, you lose your footing.