Mistakes

Yall will forgive me if, just for today, I don’t talk about sparkles or snacks or sarcasm and just write what I’m feeling, won’t you?

K, good. Here goes.

I have a friend who is making a big mistake. And I am so frustrated I could just scream. I just want to grab him and say “STOP. Look at your life. Is this what you want?”

You see, my friend is scared. My friend does not want to make a tough decision. My friend is so scared, in fact, that he would rather make a decision he knows is wrong, rather than admit it. And I’m not even talking about admitting it out loud. I’m talking about admitting it to HIMSELF.

Because that’s the hardest thing, isn’t it? Admitting to yourself that something isn’t right. No matter how big you smile in pictures and how hard you laugh in public, what you feel deep down inside is the same thing that keeps you up at night and makes your stomach clench -- that oh shit feeling.

Everybody needs someone - a parent, a sibling, a friend - who will be the person to grab you by the shoulders, smack you across the face, shake you til your teeth bounce, do whatever it takes to make you stop what you’re doing and think about your actions. I’m lucky - I have an overabundance of people like that in my life, starting with my opinionated sister and ending with my opinionated mother and spanning the many other opinionated Jews in my life. They know me, and so they tell it to me straight.

But my friend isn’t so lucky. He doesn’t have many of those people in his life. I think I’m it. Just me.

So how do I tell him something he doesn’t want to hear? How do I make him listen to that feeling deep down inside of him that I know he knows is there? How do I stop him from going down a path that I know is only going to end badly?

I was by his side the last time he went down that path. I saw what happened the last time. I don’t know if I can watch him go down it again.

Forget bills and loans and paying insurance - this is the part of being a grownup that sucks. The part where you sit on the side and watch someone you love make a mistake, and you can’t stop him. Because he can’t even stop himself.