November 9, 2019:
People don't change. They grow to be more like themselves. She became more smug, more judgmental, more aggressively passive-aggressive.
I've learned more about dysfunctional people. People who are harmful to be around. The traumas with abusive exes led to insight, in their stupid painful plodding ways. Now I see her through the optic of those experiences.
I feel it should be more sad than it is. Another of Time's eventual insights: people flow through your life, as the shaman told me during my soul retrieval ritual however long ago that was. Seventeen years? And that's ok. Love them while you can; let them go when it's done.
People don't change? I've changed. Seventeen years ago losing a friend would have been catastrophe. Today it feels like the ordinary river, flowing by.