Unknown Caller

by Lisa Unger

just liked her comment and said nothing. Because what can you say when someone takes their friendship away? Even though it feels like someone took the stars out of the sky, you can’t call the friendship police and make them give it back. You can’t call an ambulance to take you to the heartbreak hospital even though you feel like that’s where you belong.

Your life belongs to you, the site claims. You can decide when it ends.

Maybe you’re still friends with people even after they hurt you, even if they keep hurting you. Because there’s something there. Something true and deep that stays even when it aches.

It’s unusual for a Tuesday. Weekends are always the slowest, but on Monday and Tuesday, despair seems to be at its apex.

Tuesdays, again. The shittiest of days!

I realize that our friendship has been like death by a thousand cuts. I’ve bled out. There’s nothing left.

Forgiveness is not saying that certain deeds are acceptable or forgotten. Forgiveness is an acknowledgment that we are all deeply flawed, and some of us make terrible mistakes or do horrible things. But to cling to rage, hatred, or grief, to rail against what is or has been, is to kill yourself again and again, rob yourself of what life you have left, what good you can still do.