It wasn't but two weeks ago when I told her she was better off without him, callously thinking how her young little heart would heal and she would find the perfect man to love and cherish her, and not stand her up time and again.
It wasn't but a few days ago, that a vindictive-sounding 20-something was on the radio with her BFF plotting revenge on a boyfriend for his Internet-cheating ways.
We remember a song or a smell and happy thoughts waft to mind. Even if the original event may have had blemishes, they are but specks of a memory that time has forgotten.
Just as easily, we empathize with friends who are experiencing loss, heartache or pain; and just as easily, we can switch back to our own lives and shed the pain of that friend like a too-warm jacket in Springtime.
It is only when it is our own pain that encompasses us, enfolds us and draws us near that we truly can empathize with others.
Without warning, dark memories of pains past come rushing back and add to the mix, stirring up dormant emotions and mixing with the new like ink in water. The pain of the each single event becomes indistinguishable, as it holds us breathless in the icy grip of fear.
What was once brightly prismatic, reflective, and crystal pure muddies with multiple colors of different inks, different hurts, until it all just swirls into an imperfect black.
Like those mixed inks, one cannot extract a single element, rather it all pours out together; dirty and ugly, permanently staining all around it.
I realize now that the times I thought I was being an empathetic listener were just times I wore the jacket.
This time, it is me telling the story. This time, however, I am not angry, I am emptied. I am not vengeful, I am crushed.
Yesterday, a little bit of my world stained black, and it hurts, folks, it hurts.
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