I talked on text with my high school best friend this morning because I had a strange dream that included him last night. And I’m feeling anxious because J went back to work AT work yesterday. (He’s wearing a mask and so are all of his coworkers and he’s cordoned off a social distancing space around his desk and is calling into meetings instead of attending them in person…I still wish he was still home).
Anyway, D is still there for me when I’m feeling all panicky and he can still manage to make me laugh and feel relaxed and I’m feeling pretty grateful for that this morning, I guess. What an unbelievable blessing to have a friend who’s been hanging in there with me and all my evolving ups and downs for 30 years.
I really can imagine us sitting on a park bench like bookends when we’re 70.
I’m glad that as down and terrible as I’ve been feeling this past week or so, to know there are still people out there who really know me and who really do care about me. Even when Social Anxiety attacks and whittles the number of people I’m really connected to down to its smallest number, that number is still four. And I know that’s four more than some people have. I still have The Boy. I still have J. I still have A. I still have D. I’m very lucky that I’ve connected so wholly to these four amazing people and that these four amazing people do really, truly, almost completely know me (no one including even probably me COMPLETELY knows me), and they still want to know…me.
Connection isn’t gone in all of this. We just maybe have to work a little harder or get a little creative to maintain it. Maybe we have to get a little more emotionally vulnerable and brave with words to make up for the lack of and impossibility to share physical space. And when we have people who don’t make us have to work so hard to do that…to be vulnerable and brave and say the words and express the feelings from a distance…who make love and connection come easily…to be consciously grateful for them.
