when people show you who they are believe them

When people show you who they are, believe them.
--Attributed to Maya Angelou
I like this quotation, and it frightens me.
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A friend with a patchy dating history used to tell me about how she could see the red flags with guys, and she knew she was ignoring the red flags and she continued on with assholes and idiots anyway. We see, and yet we don't. I see, and yet I do nothing.
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I felt some hurt this past week and I think this is the only place I can dig into it. Mother's Day was a tough one for me. Everywhere you look, there are people with bouquets, moms and daughters, social media, stores, everything, hyping Mother's Day. So I laid low and made plans to see one of the few people who really gets it. We agreed on a time. I took a shower and made a cake. And waited. Texts came in about an hour before meet up time--running late, no don't come meet us, just wait. And then--cancellation. The person was tired. They needed to get some rest. Get some rest, I messaged. I felt sad, but I got it. It had been a tough day.
And the next day I saw on fb that the person had not gotten rest, instead they went to a birthday party.
So what to do with this? A tough day was made tougher with a lie. I would have liked to have felt important. Or at least, respected enough for the truth. This is not a conversation I feel like I can have with the person, tbh. What can I do? I can feel the hurt, remember how utterly alone and miniscule I felt. I can put up a wall with this person. I can not let them hurt me like that again.
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On a happier note, I was fortunate to see so many good friends this week, to take my favorite thirteen-year-old to coffee and ballet, to have canal-side drinks and catch up time with a pal after work one day, to laugh my way through trivia with old friends--Pops and Phatty and Jojo and Bubbles and my fellow Gin Blossom--then on Thursday, drinks and pizza in south Seattle with a glam couple.
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So for today, all I can do is do me. I can seek to understand the complications of love and family and pain through my writing.
Straw into gold.
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Today's jam: