The path to the dumpster

Who deserves to know?

Who is the person we share the hard stuff with?

Do we dump it on our best friend, or our worst enemy?

Of course we all know the jagged shards, the sharpest nails, the blinding misery cannot be shared with our enemies, or our competitors, or even our acquaintances. That would be social suicide.

So we take the ones we love best, the ones who deserve only the best and fill their basket up with our agony until it becomes too heavy and they disappear underneath it.

And when they disappear, we wish we could take it all back, but of course we never would have shared it in the first place if we'd had any choice in the matter. So we start fresh. Again and again until we get it right.

Sometimes that means paying someone to be a dumpster until the most toxic stuff is gone; until the path to the dumpster is well worn enough that we know how to get there and what to leave there.

And sometimes we get lucky enough to find someone strong enough and wise enough to be our listener and mirror and lover all in one, but you can't count on that.