Mean Girls

As greatly as we may miss Lindsay Lohan's screen presence (go ahead and have a moment of silence here, if you are so inclined) this one isn't about the movie, but rather the archetype. Well, okay, and specifically (mumbling) I was recently, um...well, I think I was a...okay I acted like a Mean Girl.

Who am I kidding?

I was mean. I felt mean and I went with the feeling.

Sort of.

See, it didn't start out like that. It started out with desperation and brokenness and dependency and need and um...silence. And since I was swirling and dizzy in the desperation and the brokenness and the dependency, the silence was um...pretty goddamned silent. I didn't know--had no way of knowing, because I was consumed by the words I actually did have to hear. Not good words, lots and lots of not good words.

Consumed. Ever been consumed? It's pretty self-explanatory. Completely devoured, chewed up and gone. That was me. (Sit down if you must, but seriously, try to follow along a little better from now on because me being all that stuff should not surprise you one bit at this point.)

Anyway, that was me. And I leaned where I could, against whatever was there, because if I fell, it would be one big goddamned fall. So I um, I had a friend and I leaned on her and she let me and said nothing. I knew nothing, except, you know, Thank God For Her. Unfortunately, I should have known better. Should have considered that she could not, and in fact, should not yet have understood my pain. She was appropriately ill-prepared. Still, I didn't see. And this became an imbalance, an irritation, a resentment for her. But she was silent. And I couldn't figure how to get to bedtime without losing my mind, much less read her mind. See, communication (you know how I am about that) was synonymous with confrontation for her, and you know I don't get that shit (Talking. It's called talking--that really would be a lousy bumpersticker, wouldn't it?), so it was a bad mix. I never had a chance, a trial. We should have talked.

But we didn't. Until the day we stopped completely. I didn't know. She'd never mentioned the resentment, the anger, the stress. Call me out, call me names, but for God's sake, call me on it. Give me a chance. But nothing. So the break was nasty and sudden and sharp and shocking. One more shitty loss. To me. How could I mend something so hidden? And perhaps I couldn't have, but I should have had the fair opportunity. On that, I will not budge.

But I digress.

So this all happened a lifetime ago, and while I now understand that I put her in a place in which she had no business or capacity to understand, and hopefully, she never will, I think somehow, that I was recently mean to her. There's no way, no reason she'd "understand" and that made me mad, and it made me mean. Why my mother? my son? my family? No one could tell me, and it turned my grief hard and mean. Indirectly, sort of. Whispery and behind my hand. The worst kind. No better than her silent condemnation, at the very least. And when I was in that broken and dark place, I should have picked on someone my own age to hold my hand--yeah, I was reaching into oblivion because I had to, but couldn't I have known she wasn't able to hold on? Couldn't she have said?

Regardless, if I'm going to talk all about forgiveness like I know it up and down, all climbing mountians and similar crap, then I should probably confess myself and begin to forgive myself as well.

So yes. I think I was a Mean Girl. And I am sorry.

Moving on.