My last couple months have been dominated by a brewing crisis. One of my best friends, certainly the one in whom I invested the most time and energy, seemed about to do something morally revolting. I tried to right her ship, but I failed. And thus did she wreck the marriage of her newborn godchild's parents. That scenario, if seen on Jerry Springer, would seem implausibly tacky.
"I'm not on board with the whole baby abandonment thing," I told her. And I kicked her out of my life.
The next few days were about how hurtful I was, how unreasonable. She even called me "holier than thou," which, when I realized that was the first time I'd been called that, sent me down a contemplative rathole. Is it a good thing never to have been called that, or had I simply never been moral before?
The headline is one of the texts I got.