oy, and ouch.

I just had a conversation with a once-very-good friend about why we can't be friends anymore. I have been trying not to have that conversation (or any conversation with this friend) for about a year, but I'm glad it happened. But having the conversation--even though it was the smart, healthy thing to do, and even though I think we both understood what was happening and why, and even though I think it was a mutually kind and compassionate farewell--reopened a year-old hurt. Owie.

Things I am learning: There's an infinite number of ways to get your heart broken, and so there must be an infinite number of ways to heal it. There are little-tiny-papercut heartbreaks and great-big-San-Andreas-Fault heartbreaks. Sometimes the big ones are just a pile of the little ones, stacked on top of one another till they become tall and imposing. Sometimes the only way to get from heartbroken to healed is to break your heart more first.

One technique in acupuncture is "bleeding cupping," in which you make a bunch of teeny little incisions--say over a sprain, where it's swollen and discolored with stagnant blood--and then place over the incisions a cup in which a vacuum has been created by sucking all the oxygen out with a flame. It gets out all the stagnant blood and promotes circulation, which facilitates the healing process. While it's happening you can tell it's good for you; it allows you to get better instead of getting poisoned, or being chronically gimpy. But it's still a bitch.