Walking on Shattered Glass

What do you do when you realize that the people you feel closest to, people you’ve been hanging out with for years, the people you see every day at work, whom you eat lunch with, whom you talk to when you have problems, and whose woes you listen to patiently, suddenly make you feel like shit? Everything changes in a snap.

Friday last week was supposed to be a good day. I was looking forward to it because our department would be having our Christmas party. But things changed during lunch.

I fetch my friends in their work stations. She tells me how the two of them were just talking about me when I came. I ask what about. She says I was a bitch yesterday. In my head I try to recall what I did the day before that offended her. I can’t recall. I ask her what I did because I don’t remember bitching at her. She doesn’t tell me. She just keeps saying I was a bitch. He agrees, says what’s new. We go down and buy lunch. I keep on asking her what I did. I feel bad that she feels bad and she doesn’t tell me. She buys something from the store and leaves me with him. I ask him what was wrong with her and what exactly I did wrong. Instead of telling me, he launches into a sermon, the point of which I couldn’t figure out except for the fact that it made me feel like I was covered with shit. On our way up, I couldn’t help but cry. I felt so small. The worst part was it was caused by the people I used to feel safe with.

Everything changes in a snap. I don’t talk to them now. I don’t know if I’ll talk to them again ever. I don’t mind being called a bitch. I know I am. But I do mind being made to feel shitty, especially by the people who I consider as very good friends. No I don’t expect them to adjust to my bitchiness. But I do expect that after the nearly 6 years that we have been together, they’d at least understand. And at the least they’d tell straight to my face and right away if my bitchiness hurt them in any way and not make me run after my own tail like a crazy dog.

I miss them. But I’m not going to reconcile with them and live always thinking in the back of my head if what I’m doing is offensive to them or not. Friends don’t make friends walk on ground scattered with shattered glass all the time.