Last Words

It's terrifying, humbling, and profoundly saddening to be faced with the possibility that you may be saying the last thing you ever will to someone. Last night I was confronted with this very real possibility which is why I feel it's important to reflect on for a little bit. The events of last night combined to form a significantly bitter occasion and all who were involved, I would rightly assume, are currently pretty crestfallen. I know for a fact I myself, am especially dejected. The events involved a mutual friend who made a series of poor decisions, and having to see some of them with my own eyes was nothing short of heartbreaking. Overall, how things played out was unsatisfying on the whole, however I can say with confidence that I'm, not content with how I conducted myself, but that I will be able to live with myself. In these types of situations, that is tragically the best case scenario. The reason I say that I will be able to live with myself is because the tone I ended on, was one of compassion. When I first sent out the message to her, I was initially unsatisfied with my wording. I would largely credit that to the fact that I'm a writer and having been aware of the gravity of the situation, I felt that the phrases I strung together should have been some of the most poetic I've ever woven. But then I realized that none of that mattered. The simple truth was that there was no magical string of words I could have said to her that would have either changed her mind, or that would have left me truly satisfied. What did matter, was once again, the tone that I had. Now again, holistically speaking, the situation was a disaster, but I know that it's out of my hands. I also know that there is a difference between simply saying that, and truly coming to accept it. The former is easy, but the latter will be a process and unfortunately it is a process that I don't have a choice in undergoing. As far as things go on my end, I will have to come to accept what happened and I will have to accept many other very ugly possibilities. This is a difficult matter, I'm making no misrepresentations to myself about that. But I know that I will be able to look myself in the mirror, I will be able to sleep at night, and I will be able to go on as long as I take the necessary steps on my end. I've already taken some of those steps, which involved talking to people about it. That was crucial, because as I've experienced before, if you bottle these kinds of things up, they will destroy you. If you don't give yourself some kind of relief, the guilt and the regret that you will inevitably deal with will be unbearable so unloading that weight is something that absolutely has to happen if you truly want to eventually be ok. I can say that I've done that and move on to the next step, which is what I'm doing right now: reflecting on it. What I'm doing in this very article, is self care. By being candid with myself and truly analyzing my own mind, I am setting myself up to be in a position to achieve true recovery, which is the ultimate goal. I have no doubt that looking back on this article, I will read it and feel immediately morose, but I also know that that feeling will pass once I remember that this is a reflective healing process. This is one of those entries that will break my heart at the beginning but by the end, I will have a profound reminder that I handled things appropriately and that I am taking the necessary steps to be whole. Like I stated before, the words I said to my friend, quite possibly, didn't make the slightest difference to her. However, they did make a difference to me and that is what is important right now. As for things on her end, that's a red herring and it's nothing I should be focusing on right now. She has her own moment of clarity to have and I can't have it for her. That's a continuation of the theme of dissatisfaction but as always, that's life. Sometimes you will be left with a lack of closure that will eat away at you if you give it the opportunity. If I focus on her, if I continue to hold on to the notion that she might wake up and understand her errors, I'm only continuing to hurt myself. I very nearly made the mistake of saying more to her, and I am especially glad that I stopped myself before making that mistake. I very nearly confronted her. I wanted to say something along the lines of "how dare you put everyone through this" but before I did that, I reminded myself of two things: I reminded myself that if compassion didn't reach them, confrontation won't either, and I asked myself the million dollar question. "If she died and this message was the last thing you said to her, how would you feel about it?" After asking myself that question I stopped in my tracks and strengthened my resolve to hold my tongue. I stopped because the last words I said, communicated that I cared about them, and I firmly believe that I was correct in that conclusion. No more words were needed.