Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
Mapping fear
SO it's been a busy few weeks. I didn't think it was much more than normal, but I guess looking back it's been rather eventful. The boy got himself into a spot of trouble the weekend before last, so he's been grounded and at home (even this week, which is Spring Break). The girl has Senioritis and has been bouncing around like a mexican jumping bean. And we've been pushing hard to do all the projects that we need to get done. The problem is, there's about four major ones, and they're all interdependent, so it's been nearly impossible to decide what to do first. What we really need is more than one scatterbrained woman, one man with PD, and a teenage boy. We really need a crew, for just about sixteen hours or so.
B took Thursday and Friday off last week to catch up on his sleep, which he managed to do a little bit of. I guess he probably would have gotten more sleeping done if he hadn't gotten his new Mac computer. (And the new GarageBand program, which is WAY cool, if I do say so myself!) I am only allowing myself to be *slightly* envious! ;-) I stayed at work, because I knew that not only did I not have enough vacation time to be taking random days off, but I knew that my being here would just spur us to try to finish a project rather than him get some rest. He slept, but not good. I don't know if it was just stress, overtiredness, or whether his explanation held some truth - that he can't sleep without me there anymore.
At any rate, we did get some work done on the porch on Saturday. We spent about four hours, all told, then just meandered for the rest of the weekend. All in all, I thought it was uneventful.
Today, we were back to work. He moaned and groaned this morning with me about having to go back to work, but I didn't think much about it. We caught up on things in the morning, then had our little sack lunch at noon. I asked him how his day was going, like I always do, and he was noncommittal. In the afternoon, I got to a point where I couldn't go any further with my spreadsheet, so I called him. I just knew he knew a trick to extract all the pieces of data out of the map in one fell swoop and import them into my spreadsheet without looking each piece up one by one. He came over and walked me through it, as per usual, then went out for a smoke.
He was back in just a few moments. "You need to be writing this down." He said.
"Oh....kay." I said.
"And not those little sticky notes, either." He said. His body language was intense, and my radar went on immediate alert. "You need to write it down... keep a handwritten how-to manual, so you know how to do these things." The sentence lobbed out between us, the unspoken words hanging out there like a green cloud of poisonous gas.
It's worth noting right here that he is the only one in the whole organization that knows how to do what he does. He is the heart and soul of the place - the man who makes the maps. He can make the programs do backflips. He's gotten everyone in there used to having maps and data literally at their fingertips, as soon as they ask.
I was the one three years ago that he chose as his successor.
At first we trained, a lot. I had to come up from absolutely ground floor. I use the program in my day to day work. But that was before I got handed my own promotion, and began working on other things. Pressing, time-sensitive things. And like B, I am the only one in my own department. Both of us are islands, and a lot of things rest on our being there to do our jobs. Somewhere along the line, I had to assume that he was going to be able to continue on until I could rest a bit in my own job; till I was ready to take both helms.
"What are you saying?" I asked, heart pounding. "How long have I got?"
He was evasive. Not a good sign.
Finally I said, not the question that I needed to ask, but the next best one. "Do you regret ...things being how they are now?" We were both talking about home... the new house, the new living arrangements,.... him being with me and my ready-made family. Big questions. Big questions, with no good answers.
He only laughed a little. "Its overwhelming sometimes. I had no idea."
My heart sunk. He would talk no more, but went back to work.
So now I'm left with more and more questions. This weekend he made an offhand comment that this would be what retirement would be like. I laughed and asked him how he would ever keep himself busy, and he said in all seriousness that he could find many things to do so. How long has he been thinking like this? What's on his mind? Is he feeling that badly that he is thinking about pulling the plug already? And where do I figure into all this?
Am I even close to ready to take on his job, too?
I am so afraid of what comes.
B took Thursday and Friday off last week to catch up on his sleep, which he managed to do a little bit of. I guess he probably would have gotten more sleeping done if he hadn't gotten his new Mac computer. (And the new GarageBand program, which is WAY cool, if I do say so myself!) I am only allowing myself to be *slightly* envious! ;-) I stayed at work, because I knew that not only did I not have enough vacation time to be taking random days off, but I knew that my being here would just spur us to try to finish a project rather than him get some rest. He slept, but not good. I don't know if it was just stress, overtiredness, or whether his explanation held some truth - that he can't sleep without me there anymore.
At any rate, we did get some work done on the porch on Saturday. We spent about four hours, all told, then just meandered for the rest of the weekend. All in all, I thought it was uneventful.
Today, we were back to work. He moaned and groaned this morning with me about having to go back to work, but I didn't think much about it. We caught up on things in the morning, then had our little sack lunch at noon. I asked him how his day was going, like I always do, and he was noncommittal. In the afternoon, I got to a point where I couldn't go any further with my spreadsheet, so I called him. I just knew he knew a trick to extract all the pieces of data out of the map in one fell swoop and import them into my spreadsheet without looking each piece up one by one. He came over and walked me through it, as per usual, then went out for a smoke.
He was back in just a few moments. "You need to be writing this down." He said.
"Oh....kay." I said.
"And not those little sticky notes, either." He said. His body language was intense, and my radar went on immediate alert. "You need to write it down... keep a handwritten how-to manual, so you know how to do these things." The sentence lobbed out between us, the unspoken words hanging out there like a green cloud of poisonous gas.
It's worth noting right here that he is the only one in the whole organization that knows how to do what he does. He is the heart and soul of the place - the man who makes the maps. He can make the programs do backflips. He's gotten everyone in there used to having maps and data literally at their fingertips, as soon as they ask.
I was the one three years ago that he chose as his successor.
At first we trained, a lot. I had to come up from absolutely ground floor. I use the program in my day to day work. But that was before I got handed my own promotion, and began working on other things. Pressing, time-sensitive things. And like B, I am the only one in my own department. Both of us are islands, and a lot of things rest on our being there to do our jobs. Somewhere along the line, I had to assume that he was going to be able to continue on until I could rest a bit in my own job; till I was ready to take both helms.
"What are you saying?" I asked, heart pounding. "How long have I got?"
He was evasive. Not a good sign.
Finally I said, not the question that I needed to ask, but the next best one. "Do you regret ...things being how they are now?" We were both talking about home... the new house, the new living arrangements,.... him being with me and my ready-made family. Big questions. Big questions, with no good answers.
He only laughed a little. "Its overwhelming sometimes. I had no idea."
My heart sunk. He would talk no more, but went back to work.
So now I'm left with more and more questions. This weekend he made an offhand comment that this would be what retirement would be like. I laughed and asked him how he would ever keep himself busy, and he said in all seriousness that he could find many things to do so. How long has he been thinking like this? What's on his mind? Is he feeling that badly that he is thinking about pulling the plug already? And where do I figure into all this?
Am I even close to ready to take on his job, too?
I am so afraid of what comes.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Flagellation
IT has not been a good day.
We have some big plans for the weekend. We made them last Monday, when we got a little windfall. The plan was for B to get a new battery for his pickup after work Tuesday or Wednesday, then we'd run up to Lowe's or Home Depot to get the materials to enclose our back porch. It's a project we've been wanting to do for some time.
He drew up the plans and I jotted a materials list. But somehow, over the course of the week we just didn't get it done.
Today we finally split up in the evening - me with the girl, to go get her tabs, and him to go get the battery. He got it, we met back here, and put it in the truck. It was only 5:00, so I thought we should run up to the store to get the materials, so we could get started early in the morning. Big mistake.
Once we got there, the frustration began. We had made a plan - to do the framing on two of the three walls and stop there until we could get the doors shuffled around. (We are moving the sliding glass door out into the new sunroom wall, and putting a regular door in its place, from the house out to the sunroom) That's what the materials list was for, and that was the plan. Once we got there, the plan changed. He talked himself into finishing the inside of the walls too, then talked himself out of it. We had decided on windows, then he talked himself out of those, too. They were too big. Then they were okay. Then when we'd picked new ones, he wondered if he should be working on the doors first instead. We had a very patient associate helping us, but I finally cut him loose and told him we'd find him when we were ready. After a long long time, I was getting frustrated.
It happens like this all the time. The home building stores are a tool of the devil, I swear. B can get absolutely lost in there. It's like a kid in a candy store. He doesn't know what to look at first. We can go in for sandpaper and come out with a light fixture, speaker wire, 2x4's, batteries, paintbrushes... and it doesn't matter if we don't have a use for them. For some reason, those places absolutely scramble his brain.
I try to stay patient. God knows, I do. I try to understand that he can't help it. But after two and a half hours in Lowes waffling back and forth and ultimately NOT BUYING ANYTHING I had to leave, or I was going to leave without my sanity. I have extreme sympathy for men who have to accompany us women shoe shopping, because THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS LIKE.
He gets to this point sometimes, and it's typically at the home centers. We call it 'spinning' or 'spinning out', because that's exactly what it's like. The motor's going, ninety miles an hour, in fact - but the wheels aren't getting any purchase so the car ain't going anywhere.
I realized on my way to the register (with a cart full of little 'stuffs' that we found along the way) that he hadn't taken his 6 p.m. meds, and it was at about that time that he crashed hard. I sent him to take his pills at the water fountain while I checked out, and we came home, no closer to knowing what we'll be doing for the weekend than we were when we went in.
I am frustrated. More than that, I'm ashamed to be frustrated, because he can't help it. I know that I can't expect him to be perfect all the time. I know, too, that I can't expect him to be able to get through Lowes or Home Depot in less than an hour. It's aggravating, yes... but it is what it is.
My stomach is balled up in knots tonight, and I know I need to let it go. But the little voice in the back of my brain keeps reminding me that if we could ever make a plan and stick to it we'd be further ahead. I had better get my mind around the fact right now that there may not be plans like I like to make in the future. I need to become more flexible. I need to have more faith in him. I know he knows what he's doing. But his sense of time drives me crazy.
Here in this blog is the place where I self-flagellate, and also blow off steam. I'm going to wear myself out here, so that I can let it go and smile when I go out to interact with him. I value B more than I do any stupid project. But that doesn't mean I'm not weak, and human. It's springtime. It's warm out. And I don't want to sit another weekend in the house doing laundry and being idle on the puter, waiting for him to decide to do something. I like to build, too.
The home stores used to be my favorite place to go, but I can barely rouse myself to do them now. They mean a whole host of things: projects that I will never get to help do, things I want to do but am not good enough at, a colossal waste of valuable time off, and potential frustration and conflict between us. And that just isn't worth it anymore.
I hope tomorrow's trip BACK to Lowes will prove to be both quicker and more fruitful. I will say that this is the last project, but we all know it won't be.
We have some big plans for the weekend. We made them last Monday, when we got a little windfall. The plan was for B to get a new battery for his pickup after work Tuesday or Wednesday, then we'd run up to Lowe's or Home Depot to get the materials to enclose our back porch. It's a project we've been wanting to do for some time.
He drew up the plans and I jotted a materials list. But somehow, over the course of the week we just didn't get it done.
Today we finally split up in the evening - me with the girl, to go get her tabs, and him to go get the battery. He got it, we met back here, and put it in the truck. It was only 5:00, so I thought we should run up to the store to get the materials, so we could get started early in the morning. Big mistake.
Once we got there, the frustration began. We had made a plan - to do the framing on two of the three walls and stop there until we could get the doors shuffled around. (We are moving the sliding glass door out into the new sunroom wall, and putting a regular door in its place, from the house out to the sunroom) That's what the materials list was for, and that was the plan. Once we got there, the plan changed. He talked himself into finishing the inside of the walls too, then talked himself out of it. We had decided on windows, then he talked himself out of those, too. They were too big. Then they were okay. Then when we'd picked new ones, he wondered if he should be working on the doors first instead. We had a very patient associate helping us, but I finally cut him loose and told him we'd find him when we were ready. After a long long time, I was getting frustrated.
It happens like this all the time. The home building stores are a tool of the devil, I swear. B can get absolutely lost in there. It's like a kid in a candy store. He doesn't know what to look at first. We can go in for sandpaper and come out with a light fixture, speaker wire, 2x4's, batteries, paintbrushes... and it doesn't matter if we don't have a use for them. For some reason, those places absolutely scramble his brain.
I try to stay patient. God knows, I do. I try to understand that he can't help it. But after two and a half hours in Lowes waffling back and forth and ultimately NOT BUYING ANYTHING I had to leave, or I was going to leave without my sanity. I have extreme sympathy for men who have to accompany us women shoe shopping, because THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT IT IS LIKE.
He gets to this point sometimes, and it's typically at the home centers. We call it 'spinning' or 'spinning out', because that's exactly what it's like. The motor's going, ninety miles an hour, in fact - but the wheels aren't getting any purchase so the car ain't going anywhere.
I realized on my way to the register (with a cart full of little 'stuffs' that we found along the way) that he hadn't taken his 6 p.m. meds, and it was at about that time that he crashed hard. I sent him to take his pills at the water fountain while I checked out, and we came home, no closer to knowing what we'll be doing for the weekend than we were when we went in.
I am frustrated. More than that, I'm ashamed to be frustrated, because he can't help it. I know that I can't expect him to be perfect all the time. I know, too, that I can't expect him to be able to get through Lowes or Home Depot in less than an hour. It's aggravating, yes... but it is what it is.
My stomach is balled up in knots tonight, and I know I need to let it go. But the little voice in the back of my brain keeps reminding me that if we could ever make a plan and stick to it we'd be further ahead. I had better get my mind around the fact right now that there may not be plans like I like to make in the future. I need to become more flexible. I need to have more faith in him. I know he knows what he's doing. But his sense of time drives me crazy.
Here in this blog is the place where I self-flagellate, and also blow off steam. I'm going to wear myself out here, so that I can let it go and smile when I go out to interact with him. I value B more than I do any stupid project. But that doesn't mean I'm not weak, and human. It's springtime. It's warm out. And I don't want to sit another weekend in the house doing laundry and being idle on the puter, waiting for him to decide to do something. I like to build, too.
The home stores used to be my favorite place to go, but I can barely rouse myself to do them now. They mean a whole host of things: projects that I will never get to help do, things I want to do but am not good enough at, a colossal waste of valuable time off, and potential frustration and conflict between us. And that just isn't worth it anymore.
I hope tomorrow's trip BACK to Lowes will prove to be both quicker and more fruitful. I will say that this is the last project, but we all know it won't be.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Pieces of my own net
LAST night I was sick; suddenly, in the middle of the night, the way it so often happens. I fled out to the living room, where I could hop off to the kids' bathroom, far away from our room, if I needed to. I left my confused and sympathetic spouse only half awake but aware. I have been weak in front of him. He knows all my secrets, even the embarrassing IBS that grabs me unexpectedly after a random meal. BUT there are some things that I can't bear to have him witness to, even at a distance. I crawl off to be sick like an animal, craving solitude.
I fell asleep on the couch after a harrowing hour or so, propped up on pillows with an afghan and "Under The Dome", the new King book, and the weenie dog tucked beside me. I don't know how long I slept there, but I woke to his hand on my shoulder. "Come to bed, honey." He helped me up and found my glasses as I fished around for them, half asleep, sliding an arm around me as we shuffled back to bed. "I was worried about you." We slid back into the warm soft flannel sheets and I felt him wrap around me as I curled up there, safe. There is something about the sound of his breathing that makes the world spin correctly on its axis. I fell asleep thinking how thankful I was for him.
Last week I was online with the writers' group when during a conversation about one of our members who has just gotten published, we began to discuss art. The newly minted author had posted a shot of her new cover art for the novel, which is a fantasy/sci fi piece. The cover art was okay, but nothing I felt like I wanted to write home to mom about. She was pleased with it, however, and was looking ahead to the next novel. One of the members posted a page with her artwork, and so I did the same.
All of a sudden there was interest. "You do beautiful work!" "Do you ever do commissions?" "Would you think about doing.....cover art?" And finally, "How much would you charge to do one for me?"
After answering "Thanks! On occasion. Possibly." and "Nothing (just credit on the jacket would be fine, thanks!)", I found myself with two new jobs. I also took a couple of copies of members' manuscripts to proof, in exchange for promises of critiques on my own. I am finding that my own net is expanding. After all, if you can trust someone with your 'baby', you know you have a friend, right?
And finally, after a long day of running errands and paying bills and making budgets, B and I were standing in the garage winding down. He looked at me thoughtfully. "What would you think of going up to the bank and opening a joint checking account?"
It's a small step, but a major one in the realm of trust. We have both been financially destroyed before. And while it will be a while until we can actually get married, the simple fact of that extension of his trust is huge, and implicit. He's bought a house with me. We are slowly paying down the debt he got stuck with from his previous life. And now, this.
This is the rope I am weaving together, making a rope ladder that will carry me across the chasms of the future. They are deep, say the people who came before me. Weave it well. I heft the coils in my hand, feeling their solidity, their reassurance. Someday I have to trust my life to these lines. I hope to connect them wisely and strongly, to people who are willing to hang on when I might not be able to. But while it's hard for one single person to hold up someone's weight, it's easy for ten. Or twenty. Or fifty, until my weight is just a petal, borne on a multitude of single fingers, passing me across the chasm so that I can get to the other side and take up MY place in the line.
I fell asleep on the couch after a harrowing hour or so, propped up on pillows with an afghan and "Under The Dome", the new King book, and the weenie dog tucked beside me. I don't know how long I slept there, but I woke to his hand on my shoulder. "Come to bed, honey." He helped me up and found my glasses as I fished around for them, half asleep, sliding an arm around me as we shuffled back to bed. "I was worried about you." We slid back into the warm soft flannel sheets and I felt him wrap around me as I curled up there, safe. There is something about the sound of his breathing that makes the world spin correctly on its axis. I fell asleep thinking how thankful I was for him.
Last week I was online with the writers' group when during a conversation about one of our members who has just gotten published, we began to discuss art. The newly minted author had posted a shot of her new cover art for the novel, which is a fantasy/sci fi piece. The cover art was okay, but nothing I felt like I wanted to write home to mom about. She was pleased with it, however, and was looking ahead to the next novel. One of the members posted a page with her artwork, and so I did the same.
All of a sudden there was interest. "You do beautiful work!" "Do you ever do commissions?" "Would you think about doing.....cover art?" And finally, "How much would you charge to do one for me?"
After answering "Thanks! On occasion. Possibly." and "Nothing (just credit on the jacket would be fine, thanks!)", I found myself with two new jobs. I also took a couple of copies of members' manuscripts to proof, in exchange for promises of critiques on my own. I am finding that my own net is expanding. After all, if you can trust someone with your 'baby', you know you have a friend, right?
And finally, after a long day of running errands and paying bills and making budgets, B and I were standing in the garage winding down. He looked at me thoughtfully. "What would you think of going up to the bank and opening a joint checking account?"
It's a small step, but a major one in the realm of trust. We have both been financially destroyed before. And while it will be a while until we can actually get married, the simple fact of that extension of his trust is huge, and implicit. He's bought a house with me. We are slowly paying down the debt he got stuck with from his previous life. And now, this.
This is the rope I am weaving together, making a rope ladder that will carry me across the chasms of the future. They are deep, say the people who came before me. Weave it well. I heft the coils in my hand, feeling their solidity, their reassurance. Someday I have to trust my life to these lines. I hope to connect them wisely and strongly, to people who are willing to hang on when I might not be able to. But while it's hard for one single person to hold up someone's weight, it's easy for ten. Or twenty. Or fifty, until my weight is just a petal, borne on a multitude of single fingers, passing me across the chasm so that I can get to the other side and take up MY place in the line.
Ripples in the mist
I have been gone a long time, and I have no excuses. I think it's inertia.
It's also that someone on one of the blogs I follow responded to something I said in such a profound way that I haven't been able to formulate a response. My grandmother always told me choose my words carefully, that they may never come back to haunt me. I tried to always think of that when I wanted to say something unkind, but it's clear that I never thought it all the way through. Sometimes they come back to haunt you in a good way.
There are grand and well planned speeches and there are sound bites, there are quips and questions, plaints and platitudes, responses and rants. The sheer variety of the ways in which the human animal communicates is staggering. And now, to add to all the verbalization, we have emails and blogs and boards. So many times we think that what we're throwing out there goes out into space, hanging in the ether like slowly dissipating bubbles wafting through the darkness until they are too thin to exist anymore and they pop out of existence.
This is not a post about internet privacy. This is not a post about free speech. This isn't even a post about a post, in the end.
This is a post about human connection.
Sometimes.... a single sentence can linger, like a note, reverberating. Even one that you think will be skimmed and tossed aside, the crust of an old bread acknowledged but ultimately useless, fit only to be consumed by the crows until none of the crumbs remain. How many words do you think we speak in an average day? Most of them are soap bubbles, admired while they lasted but meant for transience. Those words have to dissipate, otherwise the world would be so crowded with them that there would not be room for any more. And that's a good thing. Most of them are rinds; we have eaten the fruit inside them and only the husks remain.
But a very few are more than that. Some are keepers - plucked from the air and saved, to be savored. And the point I want to make is that we don't know when we speak them which ones will be those 'keepers'. Often they aren't the ones contained in the pretty speeches, in the postulating pontifications so carefully crafted to make us look learned or wise. Frequently they are there, hiding in a thought or a breath, tossed out lightly to be caught and kept. The catcher can take them away to inspect them at their leisure, turning them over and over in a hand to see what reflections can be found in each facet.
We may never think we are capable of pronouncing something that someone may find valuable. And maybe it isn't us that produces it at all. Maybe those words come from somewhere else, through us. Maybe it only happens when we find that human connection, whether face to face or across the vast sweeps of cyberspace.
Something in my friend's post moved me, and I posted back, a reach out across the blank dark face of the web. "Hold on. The net is larger than you imagine."
And it is. We are all in this together. Those simple words reverberated for her, opening doors that she may not have seen as doors until she stopped to think about them. And conversely, seeing the ripples from those words through her eyes has made me stop to think about my own. How many opportunities for human connection have I let pass by, drifting past me on the breeze, waiting for me to pluck them out of the air and prize them?
Walking through life is sometimes a lot like walking through a heavy fog, especially when life is difficult to bear. When we cannot see, we begin to believe that there is nothing more out there; nothing beyond the short reach of our vision. The world is reduced to that which we can see just in front of our faces. It can become lonely and overwhelming very quickly. "I am all alone in this." We think. "How can I bear it?" But the reality is that there is a whole vast world out there, of course, hidden just beyond our sight where we can neither see nor touch it. A whole vast world of other people, thinking that they, too, are islands in the mist, stumbling through the whiteness as best they can. It's easy to feel disoriented in that world. Sometimes, all it takes is to stumble upon one fellow traveler, who says "Hey! I am here, too, and we can be lost together." And with that one voice, the small space of your lostness becomes larger.
I am vastly thankful for being able to make a difference in someone's life with a very few words, even if just for a short time. Even though I did not know where and how those words would land. I am glad that hearing one voice in the fog made her space larger. And the sound of those two voices brought more in. That net... it is larger than we imagine, if we let it be.
Take care with your words. They ripple. And they do not always disappear. But send them out there anyway. You don't know who might be waiting to catch them.
It's also that someone on one of the blogs I follow responded to something I said in such a profound way that I haven't been able to formulate a response. My grandmother always told me choose my words carefully, that they may never come back to haunt me. I tried to always think of that when I wanted to say something unkind, but it's clear that I never thought it all the way through. Sometimes they come back to haunt you in a good way.
There are grand and well planned speeches and there are sound bites, there are quips and questions, plaints and platitudes, responses and rants. The sheer variety of the ways in which the human animal communicates is staggering. And now, to add to all the verbalization, we have emails and blogs and boards. So many times we think that what we're throwing out there goes out into space, hanging in the ether like slowly dissipating bubbles wafting through the darkness until they are too thin to exist anymore and they pop out of existence.
This is not a post about internet privacy. This is not a post about free speech. This isn't even a post about a post, in the end.
This is a post about human connection.
Sometimes.... a single sentence can linger, like a note, reverberating. Even one that you think will be skimmed and tossed aside, the crust of an old bread acknowledged but ultimately useless, fit only to be consumed by the crows until none of the crumbs remain. How many words do you think we speak in an average day? Most of them are soap bubbles, admired while they lasted but meant for transience. Those words have to dissipate, otherwise the world would be so crowded with them that there would not be room for any more. And that's a good thing. Most of them are rinds; we have eaten the fruit inside them and only the husks remain.
But a very few are more than that. Some are keepers - plucked from the air and saved, to be savored. And the point I want to make is that we don't know when we speak them which ones will be those 'keepers'. Often they aren't the ones contained in the pretty speeches, in the postulating pontifications so carefully crafted to make us look learned or wise. Frequently they are there, hiding in a thought or a breath, tossed out lightly to be caught and kept. The catcher can take them away to inspect them at their leisure, turning them over and over in a hand to see what reflections can be found in each facet.
We may never think we are capable of pronouncing something that someone may find valuable. And maybe it isn't us that produces it at all. Maybe those words come from somewhere else, through us. Maybe it only happens when we find that human connection, whether face to face or across the vast sweeps of cyberspace.
Something in my friend's post moved me, and I posted back, a reach out across the blank dark face of the web. "Hold on. The net is larger than you imagine."
And it is. We are all in this together. Those simple words reverberated for her, opening doors that she may not have seen as doors until she stopped to think about them. And conversely, seeing the ripples from those words through her eyes has made me stop to think about my own. How many opportunities for human connection have I let pass by, drifting past me on the breeze, waiting for me to pluck them out of the air and prize them?
Walking through life is sometimes a lot like walking through a heavy fog, especially when life is difficult to bear. When we cannot see, we begin to believe that there is nothing more out there; nothing beyond the short reach of our vision. The world is reduced to that which we can see just in front of our faces. It can become lonely and overwhelming very quickly. "I am all alone in this." We think. "How can I bear it?" But the reality is that there is a whole vast world out there, of course, hidden just beyond our sight where we can neither see nor touch it. A whole vast world of other people, thinking that they, too, are islands in the mist, stumbling through the whiteness as best they can. It's easy to feel disoriented in that world. Sometimes, all it takes is to stumble upon one fellow traveler, who says "Hey! I am here, too, and we can be lost together." And with that one voice, the small space of your lostness becomes larger.
I am vastly thankful for being able to make a difference in someone's life with a very few words, even if just for a short time. Even though I did not know where and how those words would land. I am glad that hearing one voice in the fog made her space larger. And the sound of those two voices brought more in. That net... it is larger than we imagine, if we let it be.
Take care with your words. They ripple. And they do not always disappear. But send them out there anyway. You don't know who might be waiting to catch them.