Another Apology You Won't Understand
For years, my friends called me Switzerland. They would pour out their problems and I would listen intently with well positioned "Really?"s and "Nooooo"s, but I refused to get involved. It simply wasn't my way to get in the way of other people's conflicts. I am human, so occasionally, if it was getting in the way of my pleasure seeking, I would make an attempt at negotiating a truce, which was always entirely selfish of me. Just like the Swiss. Anyway, this has always been my way. My friend Evan was once talking at an entire room full of people and no one was listening but me. Once he stopped his rant he looked at me for a minute and said "It's comforting to know that if absolutely no one else is listening, you are listening, Lish." I loved how they rarely called me Alysia in those days. Anyway, part of being Switzerland was being an info-black hole. If you're neutral, you don't go spouting other people's shit all over the place. If it didn't happen to me, it wasn't my story to tell. Just the other day a friend bounced some troubles off me, and once she was through, I told her that of course no one would hear any of it. "Alysia, I know. You're a tomb. What goes in never comes out."I'm sorry. There was a time when I cut off my past and forgot all this. I talked waaaay too much about things that weren't mine to tell. It became my habit to tell, to share, to give names. I'm a little ashamed now of how much talking I did. I've never been the shy, silent type, but I didn't run my mouth off like I have for the past year. My mom called me an adult yesterday. If I'm an adult, the punks are right. Adults don't know shite.
