“What’d she just say,” she thought.
It was Friday night, and the place was unusually packed. The gang all sat around their usual table. It was her favorite time of the week, the only time she could let her hair down and forget the week’s craziness.
Sitting there, staring out, she tried to wrap her mind around what her friend had said. She’d been talking about something non-consequential, and then right out of nowhere, her friend’s random comment. A stinger meant to hurt.
The comment didn’t trip her up or seem to anyone else that it had an effect, but it did. But, of course, it did. A barb, a nasty slight, meant to lower her self-esteem, if only for a moment.
Only later, when back at home, caught up in the reflections of the night’s events, would she have a hard time wrapping her head around her friend’s unjustly comment and accompanying motivation for saying it. Only then could she ponder her inactions and wonder why she continued to deal with people and their usual insults in such a wimpy way.
Absentmindedly she scrolled on her phone through the slew of random posts. One, in particular, caught her attention. But, unfortunately, it was less of a post and more of a random statement accompanied by an image – a Van Gogh. Although it was her favorite painting, what was written underneath it gave her pause.
Others value you only as much as you value yourself.
That statement, staring her in the face, was more than some unexpected consequence to her scrolling through subject matter typically meant to numb her, to take her mind off of unpleasant thoughts. This statement was a message; from her subconscious, the universe, whatever. She didn’t care because, at that moment, she realized why others felt as though they could say hurtful things to her, even about her. She didn’t think much of herself.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
Until next time-
D