You know what's really painful?

[lhexa]

Meeting an old friend and finding him overjoyed to see me again, bearing only good memories of our time together... no, that's not what's painful; what's painful is realizing that he never knew how badly I treated him.

Comments

[baxil.livejournal.com]

Write a dated letter to him, fessing up -- everything; what you were feeling then, how awful you feel now, why you did it, what you would have done differently, how you reacted when you met him again and realized all this.

Then seal it in an envelope and lock it away someplace secure, to be pulled out if he ever gets reality-checked.

Then lock your guilt away in that envelope, as much as you can, and treat him well. You're not who you were then; he's not who he was then; and if he genuinely wasn't hurt by it (or isn't hurt any more), the past doesn't have to haunt.

Best wishes.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice, but I prefer a rather different variety of symbolic gesture.

[baxil.livejournal.com]

*nods and shrugs* Hopefully it got your mind going, or something.

Ultimately far less important than this, anyway: One way or another -- again -- best wishes.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Alright. Thanks.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

"For every man alone thinks he hath got
To be a phoenix, and that then can be
None of that kind, of which he is, but he"

-Donne, An Anatomy of the World