Setting Fire to Bridges

My heart was aching. My whole chest hurt. And I seethed with rage and frustration as my mother told me not to burn bridges.

When your heart is broken and a friendship is soaked with gasoline, sending out that spark seems so right. It seems like a conflagration is the thing you need to make you okay. It feels like keeping that connection is keeping an IV drip of pain whether you can see them or not. A "friend" had hurt me, and I wanted her gone.

Have you been here? Have you, like me, seethed in wounded anger and clenched the matches in your fist?

Have you felt like the only way to honor your pain is to set fire to your friendships? Words like my mom's lash like whips, like all the love in the world is just more gasoline. I held back my spark, but I told her she was wrong. I would never want that friend, ever, ever, ever.

Two years later, when I was at my most frightened, I asked that girl to hold my baby. 

I'm not the girl with the matches anymore. I'm the woman who's seen people who called me freak reach out with their hearts. I'm the girl who's seen bullies who broke me become heroes I lean on. I'm the girl who keeps bridges when all the hope seems gone, because with what I've seen, I know I can't make that call.

There are times and places to light the match on a friendship, but they are so much rarer than I thought. And there are people who seemingly drift away forever, but my wizened old-lady 26-year-old self can tell you that many, so many, come back.

So whether you throw the gasoline or disappear without a trace, I hope you know I like you. And when we meet down the road with more adventures and more understanding, I'll be glad to see you again.

I haven't burned our bridges. They're still waiting.

(Except you, creepy jury-duty man. You remain with all the men I've judged unsafe in the "See you in heaven, talk to someone else" zone. Good luck.)