Old dogs, Old tricks.

I could try to blame this on Bad Larry's Pumpkin Blood Punch.
I could say that I was not in my right mind.
I sent an email last night that I honestly had no business sending. To a person who will probably resent the fact that I sent it, will not reply in any way and all of my good intentions will be the paving stones that drown me.

I heard something that surprised me and made me feel some combination of sad and furious. And overprotective and entitled.
And the situation is full of tricky sharp edges. Admittedly, in my early twenties I would have run headlong into the fray, asserting my opinion and handing out band-aids. But I have grown in the last ten years and tend to hold my hands up in surrender and take to the high road at a flat run. My new mantra? "My dog is not in that fight."

Until last night. I can still recognize the signs. My first impulse was to drive to the person's house and have one of my infamous "come to Jesus" conversations. I was fixated and feeling anxious. "My dog is not in this fight" became "I have to do something. I have to do something."

Really? No. I don't.

Whatever is going on will not be changed or altered by my interference. Will not be "saved." People fuck up their lives all the time, every day. And they take others down with them.
It does not matter that I have been in a similar situation. It does not matter that I have fucked up (repeatedly) in just the same way. I could talk and preach and explain and plead until I run completely out of words and nothing would be any different at all.
It doesn't matter what I heard or didn't hear. It doesn't matter what I know or don't know.
My dog is not in this fight.

But, of course, I sent an email. A brief, carefully worded email that basically just said hey, people are talking about this and that's not good.

Immediately I felt like I had done something wrong. Immediately I felt like I had let someone down or like I had betrayed someone I really cared about.
And I guess I had. Letting this need to "help" get in the way of my new position on other people's lives and problems and dramas - that is, I'm totally there for you if you ask me to be but otherwise I know nothing, I see nothing, I hear nothing - sending that email negated years of careful distance and I let myself down.

And I guarantee that the effect my little "helpful" email will have, if any will not be good.