Allrighty-then. Here’s my contribution.
“So in this new year, how are you going to take care of yourself?” my therapist, Lola, asked me the other day.
I stared at her, blinking. A normal person would know what to say to a question like this. Self-care. Self-care. The fact that I couldn’t answer her quickly did not bode well for my mental health.
Out of desperation, I reached for the first thought in my head, which is friendships. Is friendship self care? I don’t know. But if I don’t answer quickly, how much I struggle with self-care will be way too obvious.
“I need to start reconnecting with people,” I said. “Having friends over and stuff.”
I started seeing Lola last summer, when I could walk to her office and return home with it still light out. Now it’s dark and chill before my session. One wants to be inside with a book.
This has been the state of my heart since I started trekking to her office. Chilled. Slowed down. I have been spading the dirt of past hurts, turning them over, and letting all the buried things come out to haunt me. My soul temperature has plunged, and I have retreated into my safest place: solitude. I haven’t frozen out people I love, but I haven’t exactly been inviting them over, either.
Bare minimum: My family. Calls with my prayer partner. A tea or two with my closest friends. And otherwise—
“I think I need to see people,” I say again, suddenly realizing that that isn’t a pat answer. I have been caring for my solitary self for months with quiet and routine and the safety of being alone, and now that the hauntings are diminishing I am looking out the window at the people I know and wishing I could join them.
Except—
Oh, God, it’s so much safer to be alone. Austere, yes. But so quiet and safe and easy.
Lola and I talk about this, about some friendships I still grieve. People who hurt me whether or not they wanted to, and the ways the hauntings intersect with that grief.
I am always afraid friends will leave. I am always afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. I am always hoping that somehow I can manage everyone else’s junk, as well as mine, so I can make things work forever.
I am always hoping I can protect myself from the ache that comes when people move, or don’t return my phone calls, or wander away from me for whatever reason.
I never can.
Loss is part of friendship, just like closeness is. After all, I have been the one that left. Just a few years ago, when we left Argentina, I hated myself for getting on a plane and leaving my dear friend, Cami, behind. Six months before, I’d hated myself for leaving friends in San Diego for our sabbatical abroad. I would staple myself in place if it would help, but it doesn’t because this is life, not a first-grade craft project.
My therapist is looking at me kindly from the couch, and she is saying things I have forgotten to remember. That I could start with baby steps of reaching out. That protecting our hearts from hurt is never a good long-term strategy. That I can accept the grief that sometimes gets caught up with friendship because it means I have loved people well.
That I can—will—have—done okay, all on my own. I already know how to be a good friend.
On my way out of her office, I close the door behind me and walk into the cool dark of the coast. Here by the ocean, the air is full of salt and sea and it slips around my face like the softness of my daughter’s hands when she’s about to kiss my cheek.
I realize I thought I was trapped inside myself, in the safe, enclosing darkness. That I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to go back to opening my door. And I almost laugh, realizing that the key was in my pocket all this time, and that it’s time to unlock the deadbolt. I will call my friends and invite them inside.
Cutting a hiding place in scripture: #wordmadeart
A brave post. It can be hard to befriend with great vulnerability. But we’re called to. We need to. Thank you for sharing!
Thank you, Traci! It is a calling, and it’s worth it. Every last stinkin’ bit.
Heather, this really resonates with me. Thank you for sharing! I’m content to spend a lot of time alone. I need time alone. But often I choose to be alone because it’s safe and easy. If I just stay alone I don’t risk rejection or loss…I don’t risk causing pain. But the truth is I need the connection of friendship with all it’s discomfort and vulnerability. Last week I got together with a friend I hadn’t seen in two months. I’ve been content hiding out in my solitude, but when I connected with my friend I felt energized and alive. I felt seen. I struggle to reach out because I don’t believe I’m any good at relationships. A perspective from my life coach that is helping me is to think of relationships not as something I’m good or bad at, but something I can practice. I don’t have to show up perfectly every time. I won’t. I can’t. The important thing is that I keep showing up and reaching out again and again…even though it feels so much easier and more comfortable to just be alone.
wait. are you in my brain?
Yes: “think of relationships not as something I’m good or bad at, but something I can practice.” I KNOW this. I KNOW it and yet it’s so hard to live it and believe it. Thank you for the reminder 🙂
Ooooh. This is good.
I’m really protective of my heart in friendships, too. My past is also scattered with hurt and disappointment in relationships. I’m hoping that I can be brave this year, and not hold too tightly, but not avoid holding either.
I hope that for you as well, friend.
Thank you Cara. We can do it! (At least we can if we make it very small and doable 🙂 Deep breath…
I relate to this. Thanks for your honesty!
Thanks, Brenda 🙂 You’re welcome!
Oh friend, there were so many lines in here I wanted to grab and steal away for my own. After leaving ministry, I holed up like never before. I was so burned out from a life of pursuing people (read: friendships), that I couldn’t do anything but hole up and hope to be pursued. Solitude wasn’t necessarily a good thing for me, but man oh man, it sure taught me a lot about the inner workings of my soul.
That was totally my reaction after leaving ministry as well. I had spent so much time pursuing relationships with people and I really just needed someone to pursue my own heart, but I had no idea how to find that. I’m not even sure I knew that was what I really needed at the time. But that solitude did offer a lot of time for reflection and growth.
It’s good to know that even someone who’s good at the pursuit gets burned out sometimes, Cara. thanks for the kind words 🙂
Thanks for sharing! As someone who also struggles to reach out at times and can totally resonate with the idea that solitude is so much safer, I value your words.
Thank you, Michelle!
Coming to you via Cara. Love this. I am also working through friendship grief, and can relate to how hard it is to reach out. You’ve said it so well.
I’m also coming to you via Cara. I found myself thinking what a brave post this was as I read it, and also how I felt like you were writing out how I’ve been feeling lately. While the details are different, I can really relate to holing up because it really is safer. And sometimes it’s the best way to heal. I’m trying to start venturing outside of my little wall of safety a little; trying to be brave; trying to open up a little more. Friendship is a scary, risky, messy, beautiful business.
Thank you for writing such a personal post. I really appreciated it. 🙂
You’re welcome, Kelsey. Yes, it is safer sometimes, and when my body is calling out for it, I’m learning to listen. Honestly, I think it’s half of learning good boundaries–keeping away from people that aren’t healthy for us.