(I am joining Laura Lynn Brown at MakesYouMom.com in her summer blogging project about self-care, a topic about which I have much to say—possibly too much. Please read her post here.)
During this prolonged season, I lost touch with many of my friends. Not completely, but gradually.
At the beginning I called everyone. I think I wore out my welcome, even as I tried to dole out the trauma judiciously. Talking to me, getting the lastest update on my unfolding crisis, must have been exhausting. When I’d ask my friends how they were, most of them were noncommittal. Did they not want to burden me? I longed for someone else’s burden!
And so, I stopped talking. After too many lunches with too many friends, after which I practically ran to my car, sobbing, because I couldn’t stand to get that look again, that, “oh my god” look.
So I stayed busy. Waited for the one or two people who never fail to call, not in 26 and 19 years of friendship (respectively). And both of those friends always share their burdens.
There is one good thing I did during this time, and that was start going to boot camp once a week or so. I’m a morning person, and pretty much everyone who attends a 5:30 a.m. exercise class is a morning person, too. I found my people. And I discovered chitchat.
Can I tell you how much I needed chitchat? With a group of people who, for the most part, didn’t know me, didn’t know my story, or were too out of breath to ask questions beyond, “Get much rain?” We tease. We laugh. There was a joke this morning because someone said, “my cousin’s wedding,” and someone else heard, “my husband’s wedding,” which led to more jokes.
It may not be heart-to-heart, but sometimes heart-to-heart hurts too much. It can make things worse. Chitchat and jokes are healing for me. So bring on the trivial. Get out your rain gauge and let’s compare. Somebody say something funny. Please.