November 24, 2020:
I bought treats for her sweet doggie but she hurt me so I ghosted them both.
She was much too young. Far too young. But I respected her. She struggled every day to overcome the tragedies and the damages of her early life. I respected that effort and hoped to be supportive.
And I liked her, for her odd, aggressive charm, her inability to make jokes, the sparks of anger trailing from her eyelashes and fingertips, the long period of suspicion before she trusted me, the oblique ways she demonstrated her affection, most centrally by sharing her sweet doggie, a gesture I'm certain she very seldom made.
She hurt me by insisting on her independence in unnecessarily demonstrative ways. A language I experienced as rejection, although I doubt that was her intention. It's more likely her subtext was, You don't own me. But I knew that. I would not have attempted to assist her if I'd thought it bought me something.
I liked her, and I loved her sweet doggie. They helped me to be less lonely, for a moment. Perhaps in time, if there is more time, I'll achieve the resources to respond to hurt feelings without reflexively recoiling into silence.