Once Ineffable Now Conceived & Spoken

My once best friend ~ changed. It happened not gradually, but it happened without notice. Because it's not something that I'd wish to notice; rather it's something that I'd want to deny. What's the missing quality that once was? Sweetness. It's not even just compassion, with which she has an admitted problem. She has an awful listening of it since her evidence against sweetness and compassion was displayed for her in her father. Her mother, on the other hand, is the avatar of a steeled, sometimes steamrolling will. She is not totally devoid of that tender quality. She conserves it quite specially. I suppose she figured out that she can't achieve her big goals with sweetness. Like having her friends be successful or powerful. Of course tough love is far more effective than joyful encouragement alone. I'm torn between wanting my own toughness and wanting everyone to be tender, along with its derivatives: compassion, trust, vulnerability. Sweetness: a humble, joyful simplicity of spirit.