When your soapbox unfolds

            I called Ellee the other day to finally tell her what has been going on with me this past month. Calling Ellee is kind of like the last confession for me. The acknowledgement that, okay okay, this happened and is happening and it's not going away. Calling Ellee makes it all real. I think it's because Ellee has known me since I started becoming a person, or maybe because she is far away, or maybe, and probably this is why, but maybe because Ellee always tells me the truth. Have you heard of it, the truth? The truth is like hydrogen peroxide. You know that it works and it foams big like healing but, man, does it burn. Fuck the truth. But it helps. And it's growth, and what else are we trying to do but grow anyway?

            So, I called Ellee. She answered and I took a deep breath and told her all that there was to tell. I thought it would be ugly, but it wasn't ugly. It just was. I told her all these details but mostly I couldn't stop stressing the fact that I had hurt someone and that I was hurting because of it. I told her that I hurt someone I love and that I think I was witnessing adulthood and that I don't want it to ever happen again. And then she responded with the truth. Which I hate. She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, but she said that the sad but comforting thing is that it won't ever stop. We will never stop hurting the people we love, even if it's the last thing we want to do. I mean, come on, what? At first, I just felt the sad and then the comforting dawned on me. I am participating in the human condition – hurting and being hurt by the people I love. And while that is sad, at least we are in it together. And, somehow, it fosters a beautiful ability to forgive and a deep understanding of what it means to have empathy and to love unconditionally. We are flawed, but at least we are all flawed. At least we are in it together.