I’m calling this “graphology,” because I’m no good at titles

Heather is on a business trip (brave woman! only weeks out from a hysterectomy and she’s flying around the country! I stand in awe.) and I (Sharon) am over here posting in her stead.

When I talked to her last night, she said she just had a chance to get her handwriting analyzed, and she didn’t do it.

I was amazed. For me, that would just be the opportunity of a lifetime: having a real graphologist tell me what’s in my handwriting.

I’ve been fascinated with graphology for a long, long time. Any time I see a stranger’s handwriting I can’t help giving it the cursory once-over: is it slanted to the right? to the left? Or is it straight up and down?

I turn the paper over to see how much pressure they applied in writing the words. Can I see the imprint of the characters pushing through the fibers of the paper on the other side, like Braille? If I can, that’s the sign of a forceful, strong personality (or, the person was in a fierce mood at the time).

Because I really do believe that our moods and predispositions influence how we write, not just what we write but how we write it.  I believe that, because we were all taught to write copybook at first, with identical scripts, yet no one (well, almost no one. I can think of one exception in my acquaintance, but she’s a librarian) writes in copybook now.

So, said Heather, why don’t you ever tell me what my handwriting means?

The fact is, I don’t analyze my friends’ handwritings. For one, I’m not qualified: this is just a couch hobby for me. Also, when it comes to friends and family I have a hard time of it. Probably for the same reason that psychologists don’t analyze their own families: it’s hard to be objective.

But also, there’s nothing glaring or cautionary in Heather’s handwriting. In fact, Heather’s handwriting is lovely (though she denies it when I try to tell her so. I don’t think anyone likes their own handwriting). Garland connections between letters like a chain of daisies, indicating a sweet,  friendly personality.

Her handwriting is firm, decisive, but kind and thoughtfully planned, well-formed, temperate.

Sometimes her letters alternate between cursive and print, the sign (I’ve read) of a quick, practical, highly intelligent mind. (Because the mind, while transcribing, is also simultaneously evaluating how to write each letter in the fastest form.)

I suspect that is what the graphologist would have told her, if she’d submitted a handwriting sample last night just for kicks and giggles.

Now if the graphologist had looked at mine….well. That’s another story altogether.

Now come on back, Heather, because we miss you…

While you were sleeping

Dear Heather,

As I write, you are under anesthesia, in surgery. I know how much you dreaded this procedure because you didn’t want to be put under; you have never had a surgery before. I’ve been the blithe one, because I seem to have had quite a few.

Then again, I’m not a nurse; I’ve never really grasped what happens once the lights go out for me in the OR, so my perspective has been quite different. My ignorance is bliss, so why aren’t I happy?

I’m unhappy because you’re the one on the table this time.

We had such a good weekend, though, didn’t we? I loved it that I could see you before your surgery and hopefully take your mind off of what loomed ahead for you, today.

It was so much fun for me to show you my college town, and Maxwell’s, the bohemian restaurant where I used to dine when I had the funds to do so. And I can’t believe I drove around Morgantown when I’ve always been so afraid of doing just that because the traffic patterns looked so confusing (and I still believe they are!).

But you are one of those kinds of people who have that effect, it seems; I start believing I can step outside my comfort zone and achieve more than I’d have imagined possible.

I really enjoyed taking you to Bead Monster and working on our bracelets together. I especially liked it because you always insist you’re not creative, you’re not artistic, you couldn’t do what I do, but when we sat down together at the counter to work, you totally rocked. I’m sorry now that I didn’t take a picture of the bracelet you created, but it is gorgeous.

I got to show you the Creative Arts Center, and the Mesaros galleries on the first level. I enjoy taking you to such places, because I love your insights. Case in point: there was an installation piece up, and I said, “I never really get these things; I don’t understand them,” and you answered calmly, “I think we don’t necessarily always have to understand it.” I couldn’t help smiling, because, you know, you’re absolutely right. We don’t.

Your friendship is such a gift.

I talked to your husband this morning about fifteen minutes after they wheeled you back to the OR, and he told me you’d be in surgery for two, maybe three, hours. I opened up a Pepsi, and sat down to write this letter to you, a letter telling you how much we all care about you and wish you well today.

I just wanted to send you this good thought, while you were sleeping…

Sharon

tidings of goodwill and joy

As she wrote about a few posts back, Heather’s been singing this weekend in the Living Christmas Tree. I talked to her yesterday and she sounded so exuberant! She is a beautiful singer — and music is her element. I’ve been over here wishing I could have been there in the audience, listening with the rest of them to the Tree with awed reverence.

I love music too, but I couldn’t claim to know it nearly so well. I don’t really sight read all that well and when I play the piano, it’s almost entirely by ear, which feels sometimes like cheating. I have a deep admiration for musicians who understand the medium note by note. It seems to me their understanding of the work would be so much more complete.

I have told Heather how proud I am of her for being in the Living Tree and she always points out that there are lots of people in the Tree and it’s a group effort, not hers alone. I’m just one voice of many, she said to me last week. You wouldn’t be able to hear which voice was mine. We all blend together.

Ah, I think, but it is still such a lovely voice, and it lifts up so many others in spirit with the gift of song.

Sometimes I wonder if the messages we need to hear the most aren’t carried by the voices we can pinpoint or identify — the soloists, the ones in the spotlight. The truest gift is the gift given with both hands open, and the Living Tree is one of those gifts. I am deeply hoping to see a DVD of this performance someday — if only to borrow a sense of what it was to be in that audience, when members of the congregation (and my best friend) stood up to sing praises to God, and carried everyone with them in, truly, tidings of goodwill and joy.

That’s what Christmas is all about. At least, for me. And I’m so proud of Heather for all the gifts she so unselfishly shares — the Living Tree, her medical work, her compassion and empathy, her writing, and her friendship. To name just a few.

–Sharon

out of the mouths of babes

Heather is out of town this weekend, so you’re stuck with me (Jellyhead) and my dilemma.

Here’s the question – is it a concern when your children know all the words to ‘Karma Chameleon’ and ‘When Doves Cry’?

Is it bad if they bop around the room to ‘Walking on Sunshine’?

Should I condone this behaviour (even encouraging them, by dancing with them in the living room), or should I warn them that eighties music is evil, synthesised rubbish, and buy them something more modern, like Gwen Stefani?

I do actually own a few albums from this century. Truly I do. It’s just that they’re not dance music albums. But even they can present problems when it comes to one’s offspring. Take for example my James Blunt album (shush! Don’t shout like that! I know James Blunt is overplayed and out of fashion. But I like his music. So there). My kids can sing each and every word to ‘Goodbye My Lover’. That’s all very well. It’s even kind of cute to hear my six-year-old daughter singing sweetly, “I’d be the father of your child”. Or maybe cute’s not quite the right word. But it’s funny and not actually offensive.

But here’s my second dilemma. There’s another James Blunt song I’m worried about. My kids already sing the chorus word perfect. So consider the words of the second verse of ‘You’re Beautiful’……..

‘Yeah she caught my eye,

As we walked on by.

She could see from my face that I was

F**king high’

Hmmm. I guess it might be time for James Blunt to exit the building.

Now where did I put my Paul Simon CD?

guest post by mystery blogger (please be nice to her)

I am not too proud to admit that I shamelessly begged Heather to let me post on her blog today. I have at times been an ardent and enthusiastic blogger, at other times (such as now) I just seem to have lost my inspiration and have backed away. I want to pose a question, more of a situational analysis really, and see if any of Heather’s thoughtful and insightful readership can fix me.

I have a big problem.

Bear with me while I backtrack for a moment— I grew up as the youngest child in an upper-middle-class family that moved around frequently. My parents were (and are) loving, supportive, and very religious. We went on family vacations cross-country, went hiking in the mountains, and were generally a rather bookish and introspective family that loved each other deeply, although frequently silently.

Fast-forward thirty years, if you will. I am now employed in a professional field, as is my spouse; We have the requisite 2.0 children, a minivan, and a dog. We live in a cute little house in the suburbs, and our kids go to a private school. Life is grand, no?

Now, the gritty, not-so-glamorous part— I am passive-aggressive in a big way. I tend to bottle things up. I do not recall, not on one single occasion, being screamed at by either of my parents. Never. In fact, I really don’t recall anyone really getting ON me until my first job out of college..

Me: (sitting at my shiny new desk, bewildered, excited to be making fairly good money. I hear footsteps approaching…)

Boss: “What the H*ll happened on this file???!!??” he screamed, as he slammed the thick file down on my desk, rattling the framed photos of my college friends.

Me: (thinking to self— well, I have been here less than a month, I doubt anything that I did could have happened on this file… fighting back tears….. ) “excuse excuse excuse I’m sorry excuse”

Boss: you need to pay better ATTENTION! Don’t let this happen AGAIN!!!” (struts off, secure in the delusion of his importance)..

Me: (feeling the first drip of the tears that were balancing oh-so-precariously-and-plumply on the edge of my eyelid) “I’m done. I’m applying to grad school. I’m done.”

There we have it, my first experience with being unjustly “yelled at.” (Sorry Heather, isn’t this punctuation day? I’m going to blow the curve).

My point is, I did not come from a family of screamers. I have never been screamed AT with any regularity. I would have never imagined that I could be this person.

My spouse, on the other hand, came from absolute chaos. Anyway.

From our first year of marriage, I learned that I do in fact have the capacity to feel rage toward another person. I experienced firsthand the shame of seemingly being unable to control one’s emotions.

But of course, I would never do that to my kids. Not me. Oh no no no no no not me. Fortunately, I do not yell at my children with any regularity, but that doesn’t mean I don’t WANT to yell, scream, rant & rave. I currently have the patience of a gnat on speed.

All day long I am advising people, making decisions, putting out fires, making presentations, etc etc. It is what I do and I am good at it, and I enjoy it. It’s easier though— at work, it is ok and even acceptable to be passive-aggressively mad at your co-workers, they are supposed to be ADULTS after all, aren’t they?

But at home,,, ahhhh, therein lies the dichotomy. The gloves are off at home— everyone is tired. At the first negative comment from my spouse, I feel my blood pressure physically ramp up but I really try to suck it up and rise above… At the first whine from my youngest (who, granted, has an innate capacity to talk normally in a whining voice, and has obviously grasped the reality that I will sometimes cry uncle rather than listen to the extended whining), I really want to remove myself from the room. At the first realization that my oldest has once again left his homework at school, I want to get in the car and drive to Walgreens and peruse the makeup aisle. I don’t know why– but I seem to have misplaced my patience— have you seen it?

I want everything to be ok, but I don’t want to have to take the initiative to make it that way. I am a lazy, revolting person because I honestly fantasize about taking a vacation all by myself, with nobody pulling at me wanting anything. That will never happen, not in this lifetime, because I won’t leave my kids.

Now that you feel that you must bathe in a glistening tub of bleach to get my sordid admission out of your psyche, here is my query for you…

How do YOU make yourself be patient?

When you are tired and spent, how do you rejuvenate yourself?

How do you redirect your children when they are tired as well?

When you feel that you are about to yell, what do you do?

And possibly most importantly,

How do you juggle it all— what works for you?

guest post by Jill

There’s a reason I haven’t been writing lately. We took a family trip over Labor Day weekend and got a call on the way home that Brad’s grandmother was having emergency surgery. She’s been in the hospital on a ventilator ever since. We spend more time than usual at the hospital and we have family staying with us most nights. Lately, all of our evenings are spent playing catch-up with laundry, housework, bills and, for Brad, homework.

Jill from Charming and Delightful (one of my favorite readers!) nobly offered to take up the slack for me by writing a guest post. I appreciate her so much.

I’ll be back soon. I promise.

Heather

***************************************

I don’t know how long I’ve been reading Heather’s blog and I can’t even remember how I found her, but Blog Blah Blah was one of the first blogs I began reading on a regular basis. And Heather was one of the first “blog personalities” whose life I followed regularly, despite the fact that we probably couldn’t be more different from each other.

You don’t have to read this blog very long to know that Heather wears her heart on her sleeve and is very open with her emotions. She feels things strongly and needs to express those feelings. I, on the other hand, wear my heart safely inside my chest and tend to bottle things up — internalize them, as my therapist recently described.

For me emotions are to be felt, then moved on from. I don’t have much need to discuss them at length or even dwell on them in my own mind. Good experiences are enjoyed while they last, but then it’s back to reality. Bad experiences are to be learned from, but not agonized over. As such, I live my life with no regrets. Any mistakes I have made have brought me to where I am today — which is a pretty good place in the grand scheme of things — so they must have happened for a reason. To say that I regret something implies I’d want to go back and change it, and that is simply not possible. I don’t have a souped up DeLorean or a Way Back Machine to go back and change the past, and if I did, even the bad choices I made usually had some good come from them, so they’re not really all that bad after all.

There is one exception to this rule. And it’s something I have struggled with for six years now. When I got married in November 2001, there was a very important person missing that day and all because of choices I made out of fear and convenience. And that is a decision I truly regret.

My best friend, E, happens to be my ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be gay. He and I dated off and on through college and made a go at a “real” relationship shortly after I graduated. We were as close as two people could be. We had a connection like I’ve never experienced and despite enduring a rather unhealthy relationship for several years, we simply couldn’t “quit” each other.

Ours was an unorthodox relationship in that even when we called each other boyfriend and girlfriend, neither of us considered the relationship exclusive. There was also the minor detail of E’s bi-sexuality, which basically went undiscussed. In my mind I justified it, I think, by convincing myself that if he wanted to be gay, he would be, but he obviously didn’t and I’d do anything to make him happy. So I stayed with him despite the rumors and secrets. And because he was my best friend. I couldn’t imagine not having him in my life, so I swept the feelings of pain and uncertainty under the proverbial rug.

After nearly five years “together,” I was ready to take the relationship more seriously. We were living in different cities at the time, about an hour and a half apart. The long distance thing was wearing on me physically and mentally. Truth be told, I didn’t trust him and was suspicious of where he was and who he was with when we were apart. I was living in Milwaukee at the time and E was in Chicago, which offered more opportunities to me professionally. It seemed to make sense that I move to Chicago — so we could take our relationship and my career to the next level.

When I brought it up, he balked. And after much discussion he admitted that he didn’t think our relationship would be the same if we lived together — or even in the same city. And he was right. And that was my point. I was ready for a change, but he was satisfied with the status quo because of the internal struggles he was facing regarding his feelings for me and the other feelings he had been denying for so many years. I didn’t realize this at the time, but I believe it to be true now.

We ended up breaking up. It was more painful than anything I had gone through at the time. And I swore off dating, not only because I was still getting over E, but because I didn’t really know how to date. We had been together, such as it was, for so long, but I never really dated him or anyone else in the traditional sense of the word. I didn’t even know where to start. I was particularly not interested in having another long-term relationship, so when a friend from work offered to introduce me to a friend of hers visiting from Chicago I was absolutely not interested. “The last thing I need is to date another guy from Chicago,” were my exact words, I believe. But for some reason, I went along with her one night after work and met this guy. And it was like being struck by lightning. I wanted to see him again and when I did, I wanted to keep seeing him.

Going to visit this new guy in Chicago opened up the possibility that I would run into E, and I didn’t want it to be a total shock if it happened, so I called him to tell him that I was seeing someone new. To say he didn’t take it well would be an understatement. Not necessarily because he wanted me back, but I think he must have been going through a very difficult time as he struggled with his sexual identity. And the last thing he needed was to hear that I had found someone… someone he was convinced, somehow, was the one. It was just too much for him to handle and he took his frustrations and emotions out on me. It was not pretty and I decided I didn’t need that kind of drama in my life, so I walked away from the whole situation. Wrote him out of my life.

Fast forward 3 or so years. I am living in Chicago and engaged to the “guy from Chicago.” I have a great job and we are planning a perfectly beautiful wedding for the fall. But something is missing. There is a hole in my life and there’s only one thing that can make me complete. I look up E online and send an email to an address I recognize from when we were together. I don’t know if it’s still active, but it’s the best way I know to reach out to him. In my email, I say that I’ve been thinking about him a lot and find that has time goes on, I miss him more and more. He responds quickly and tells me he has been wanting to reach out to me too, but didn’t know if I would be receptive to him. We decide to meet for drinks one evening after work to catch up.

E has something he wants to tell me. Something very important. He doesn’t tell me this, but I know it. Because a year or so earlier a mutual friend of ours outed him to me. Walking into the bar that evening, though, he didn’t realize I already knew, and was visibly nervous. We were there, catching up, for quite a while, but he still hadn’t shared his news with me. I excused myself to the restroom and told myself that if we walked out of there that night and he hadn’t told me he was gay it meant that he didn’t value our relationship and I would be done with him. It turned out to be one of the first things he said when I returned to the table. And I hadn’t realized it until then, but I had a choice to make. Do I tell him that I already know or do I feign surprise? I knew I couldn’t fake my reaction, so when he said, “I’m gay,” I simply said, “I know.” We talked about how I found out and a hundred other things before we headed home that evening, and we kept in touch via email and instant messenger, with an occasional dinner or night out on the town.

It was as if no time had passed at all. And we had our “friend” — the one who prematurely outed him — to thank for that. While E would have preferred to be the one to tell me personally, having his secret revealed by someone else was a blessing in disguise as it gave me the time to absorb it and come to terms with it. We jumped back into our friendship with a better understanding of what went wrong in our relationship and were both in good places personally, so the bad stuff just didn’t matter. As I said at the time “A lot of things make sense now.”

When it came time to send out invitations to my wedding, several months had passed since I reconnected with E (and Hubbz certainly wasn’t threatened by my gay ex-boyfriend), so we happily added him to our list. He was thrilled to receive the invitation but wanted to make sure his attendance wouldn’t cause any problems for me or my family. They had met E on several occasions when we were together. He even stayed at my parents’ house with me and met my grandparents and extended family. And I didn’t think about it initially, but it did present a conundrum. How to explain the presence of my ex-boyfriend to my conservative Midwest family? My parents didn’t even know that he and I had reconnected because the questions about “What does Hubbz think of that?” would lead to the inevitable revelation that he was gay, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. It would take a lot of explaining. And I would have to answer a lot of questions. People might be uncomfortable, too. It was just too much to absorb and deal with at the time, with the other wedding details I had to take care of, so I simply just ignored the issue, hoping it would go away. Which it did. E voluntarily opted out of attending the wedding, even though we both wanted nothing more than share the day together.

We had been through so much together. He knew me when I was a 19-year-old small town girl unsure of herself and what she could accomplish in life. Your wedding day is one of the defining moments where you want everyone important to you to be around you, so you can take it all in and revel in how far you’ve come and what bright things lie ahead. And because I was too scared to confront a delicate subject with my family one of the most important people wouldn’t be there. And it broke my heart.

This fall, Hubbz and I celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary and to this day, I am so disappointed in myself and my cowardice in not proudly presenting E, not as my gay ex-boyfriend, but as my best friend, to my family. I can make excuses about how busy I was, how much other stress I was under, until I’m blue in the face, but it doesn’t change the fact that I let fear trump friendship. I know it hurt him at the time and knowing that makes it even harder to accept what I did. Which was essentially nothing, but that doing nothing is something I truly wish I could go back and change. Maybe it wouldn’t have gone well, maybe he still wouldn’t have come, but I would have put my own discomfort aside for the sake of our friendship, and that would have been something.

and now a word from someone else

(It’s just me, Sharon: I’m filling in for Heather — temporarily — while she enjoys a relaxing weekend with her family.)

“I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special. “

–Julia Roberts, “Steel Magnolias”

Heather and I had a conversation about this quote when we were in New Mexico. We discussed it because I, personally, disagreed with the character of Shelby in Steel Magnolias; I didn’t think she was at all wise in pursuing a pregnancy when the doctors had advised her so strongly against it. Even when I saw the movie for the first time and didn’t know how it would end, I still sided with M’Lynn, the mother.

Heather, on the other hand, did agree with Shelby. That’s what life is about, living, Heather said. It’s better to live life to the fullest, to live well rather than not at all.

So on this we differed. However, I know that when I err on the side of caution however excessive, I am erring also on the side of fear.

I am a person who has a great many fears.

I can easily be a recluse. (Admission: I have to force myself to leave the house, most days.) I find it difficult to read the newspaper, even, because the news can distress me so deeply. All over the world chaotic and terrible things happen. It’s frightening how uncertain and unpredictable life is: some mornings I wake up and think, What if this is the last day I’m on this earth?

And I’ve lived other places and done a few things, is what’s funny about it. It was me who eloped my senior year in college, moved across the country a year later to San Francisco with a new husband and an infant son, and stood up in coffeehouses to read my poetry to perfect strangers.

And when I moved back to West Virginia a few years after that and started divorce proceedings, I read J. Krishnamurti, who wrote of how, when you invite life to open doors, life has a way of inviting you, as well. These were words I found to be true, as I remarried and moved again and began rebuilding my life and starting a new career as a reporter.

Then one day I stopped at the police department to look over the reports and read the accident details of a single-fatal on I-70. This is what spooked me: the attending officer had detailed the contents of the vehicle in the accident report: one pair of sunglasses, one audiobook case (the tape still in the car’s deck), one pocketbook.

Standard stuff that went along with my beat, but I felt physically sick nonetheless over the death of this woman, this unknown, faceless woman in her forties who died when her car lost control and crossed the median. The possibly minute detail that she’d been listening to her audiobook when she died shook me to the core.

Maybe because, until then, I’d considered my life thus far to be reasonably brave. But at that moment, I realized, maybe not. Not when a woman driving down the road listening to an audiobook on a sunny afternoon can suddenly, unexpectedly, wreck her car and die. Why, I had driven down that selfsame interstate, how many times? Listening to audiobooks and looking for my sunglasses. And why was it her and not me?

I felt afraid.

Once you realize how quickly things can change — and granted, for some reason I was woefully tardy in realizing it — the bravery is in continuing to leave the house and live, even if it’s only for thirty minutes of wonderful.

I want to be brave too.

my best friend

(Heather is taking a much-needed break this weekend and I, Sharon, am writing a post in her stead.)

• When I was five, my best friend was the neighbor lady’s granddaughter. We played together in her grandmother’s backyard, swinging wildly on the playset made out of two metal triangles joined with a steel rod and firmly shoved into the ground. My fingernails were longer and more nicely manicured than hers, and she pushed me off my swing once just to see me break one. I ran home crying as she laughed at me and taunted, “sissy girl!” at my back. That was my best friend when I was five.

• When I was ten, my best friend was a troublemaker who stole the Timex wristwatch I got for my ninth birthday and tried to talk me into stealing a pen from the town library (I wouldn’t). We’d play Barbie dolls in the bedroom she shared with her two older sisters, and talk, in low voices, about what it would be like to kiss a boy. “I wonder what it would be like to cave,” she confided, “Just like Natalie says on Facts of Life–” (I had no idea what she was talking about.) That was my best friend, when I was ten.

• When I was fifteen, my best friend listened to WKKW “boot-kickin” radio (a country music station), knew how to quilt, and kept a book of wallpaper samples in her room to look at so she’d know how she’d decorate a house of her own, if she ever had one. She said she liked being around me because I made her laugh. She knew how to cook. Sometimes we walked a mile to the grocery store just to buy a carton of ice cream and a handful of candy bars, and we’d eat them all by ourselves once we got home. Sometimes, walking places, a pickup truck would drive past and honk and she’d say, “D’you hear that? Did you see that guy looking at me?” and I’d feel, quietly, the littlest bit insulted (how did she know it was for her?). But I never said anything, because I didn’t want to fight about it (and she was probably right). Those were waters I didn’t care to navigate. That was my best friend, when I was fifteen.

• When I was twenty, my best friend was a fiesty blonde who dropped out of high school and went to college on a G.E.D. We went to flea markets together and shopped for outrageously cheap antique clothes. We read insatiably. She had a way of saying “supposebly” instead of “supposedly,” something that would have bothered me in anyone else, but her way it was cute. We got in one big fight when we were both going into the library and I put my finger to my lips and said “Shhh” before we walked in. She took offense to that, asking me why it was I assumed she didn’t know how to act in public. I didn’t mean that, but we never cleared it up. She was honest to a fault. She generally couldn’t ever let something rest but had to stir it up, track it down, iron it out and pin it flat before all parties involved agreed upon it and signed a treatise for future understanding. She had a way of losing things that were valuable. I loved her dearly, but I somehow let her drop out of my sight. Sometimes I’m not the most observant person on the planet.

• When I was twenty-five, my best friend was an aesthetician who invited me everywhere and sent over Chinese food when she and her husband had ordered too much for themselves. We had sons about the same age, and we had them play together almost every day. Sometimes she went through her closet and gave me clothes she was tired of, or perfume she’d tried and didn’t care for but thought I’d enjoy. She was kind and generous and thoughtful. She adored the writer Danielle Steel and we had to walk past her mansion in Pacific Heights at least once a week (“Just think if she ever came out and talked to us! What would I say!”). Then she moved away and I had to walk past the mansion alone. It wasn’t nearly as fun without her to share it with. That was my best friend when I was twenty-five.

• When I was thirty, my best friend became Melonie, who I met in the parking lot of our children’s elementary school, waiting to pick them up every afternoon. It became understood that I would get out of my car and go sit in hers to have a lively conversation while our younger children swapped toys from various Happy Meals. Melonie won’t wear jewelry, drives better than I do, has an IQ of about 200, can read Dean Koontz without having nightmares, and has no qualms about speaking her mind. Melonie is still my best friend. I love her dearly.

• When I was about thirty-six, I met Heather. In many ways, my friendship with Heather is different than any other friendship I’ve ever had. I’ve seen her much less, yet I feel I know her pretty well, and in some cases better, than some. Like my other friends, she has no qualms about speaking her mind. She is kind and generous and thoughtful. She is honest to a fault. She says I make her laugh.

Heather has the most delicate and exquisite sneeze on the planet. She knows cardiac like nobody’s business. She has a way of doing kind and thoughtful things for people all the time, not that she’d ever advertise it, because she’s not that kind of a person. She’s fiercely loyal and protective of those whom she loves. And she makes me laugh, too. I love her sense of humor. I love the way her mind works. You wouldn’t believe how much we have in common. Sometimes I feel like we were separated at birth.

I’ve loved all my friends, in their seasons, for different reasons; but I find, if I were mapping it on a graph, in my thirties my friendships have had a way of getting better as I grow older. I’ve learned to appreciate them differently. As if we learn how to navigate, over time — we begin to learn how to intuit, observe, seek and find, within our maps of human geography. Or maybe that’s just me.

Because of knowing Heather I’ve also started to learn how to talk things out; find different ways to react to old triggers; how to reach out to the people I love. I learned it from watching Heather, because she’s so good at it — the navigation and the observation. And she won’t take credit for it, either, because she’s not that kind of a person. At the Cedar Point trip it was Melonie who said, “You rock, Heather! You get us in touch with our feelings!” And Heather got a hug from Melonie and I didn’t.
I’m finding that there are some people you meet, who end up making you a better person just by the sheer virtue of association. And that in turn, you come to appreciate every other friendship in your life that much more. It just goes on amplifying. And it’s all good.

And that’s thanks in part to you, my dear friend Heather.

Thank you for being a friend

It’s just me, Sharon — I’m guest posting for Heather while she takes a much deserved weekend off. (I love guest posting for Heather. I’m just sayin’. It must be how Jay Leno felt when Johnny Carson let him host his show, now and then.)

I think people often get the idea that Heather and I are blogging buddies, which is true, and yet not true. Heather and I know each other first and foremost through letters. Yes, letters. She’s been a pen pal for quite some time now.

When we finally got to meet this summer, I felt like Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey in “Beaches” (“I can’t believe I’m standing in the same room with you!”).

First of all, I don’t think anyone really knew with a certainty that I’d be at Cedar Point with everyone else this summer, even though I’d already declared about fifty thousand times that I would. This is because I’m a teeny bit agoraphobic (and how could you not be in this day and age? When you leave the house and anything could happen, anything at all! And you might have been so much safer, if you’d only stayed home like you were supposed to).

But I did go! And we checked into our suite and then went downstairs for an Italian dinner and afterward we walked along the fluffy sifted-flour coastline of Lake Erie. Well. Along it and in it, partially. The quixotic Melonie had the vision of hiking all the way out to the jetty to see the lighthouse up close, but the anemic Sharon petered out miles beforehand and the quest had to be abandoned, regrettably.

Then we swam in the Breakers’ outdoor pool (and I do prefer the chlorinated sparkly blue water to the briny muddy freshwaters of the lake, truly) until nearly eleven in the evening. Swearing we have to remember to do this again, make a habit of it, because it’s so much fun for all of us to get together, really it is, life is so short — we need this, a day off, we truly do.

Once we got back to our suite Heather and I decided to go back downstairs again for ice cream. I’d just showered and changed into my tie-dye tank top and pajamas set when we had the inspiration to visit the ice cream shop, and decided to just go as is. Melonie (because she knows me and my fussy-ness about the proper attire in all places) was startled: “But…you’re wearing pajamas!”

I looked down. “I know. Is that…bad?”

“No! No! It’s just….You never wear pajamas outside! But it’s great, you look great! Go ahead, yes!”

I heard her murmur on my way out the door: “Sharon’s relaxing! She’s really relaxing!”

I grinned.

So Heather and I are standing at the elevators waiting for the next one to arrive and the whole day just felt full-to-bursting with relaxation and laughter, it seemed to me. I was just about to say so when Heather turned to me and said — just like Barbara Hershey– “I can’t believe you’re standing next to me!”

“I know,” I said, and just then we both, as if on cue, turned around to see a very young couple, a boy and girl, holding hands and gazing at us sternly.

Very sternly. They looked sort of horrified, if you want to know the truth. Like they’d just walked in on something…indiscreet.

Heather looked at me. I looked at her. There was this instant of complete comprehension — what that couple was thinking, and that there was no possible way to correct them without making their misunderstanding worse.

There was nothing to do but laugh. And laugh. And laugh. Suddenly all the tension of the trip — the anticipation of seeing a friend in person after all this time, the anxiety (will we run out of things to talk about? will there be awkward silences? what if we all don’t get along as a group? what then?) seemed to dissolve into deep, infectious laughter that made my belly ache.

Heather and I started laughing, all of a sudden, so hard we could barely stand up and we leaned against each other, still giggling and choking and bellowing out bigger belly laughs and practically holding each other up, we were laughing so helplessly. It was all so ridiculous! That they thought–! And we were just–! Oh, people can be so funny!

Meanwhile the young couple in love are still holding hands and have apparently made the tacit decision to avoid and ignore us two fools as completely as possible. It felt like our laughter literally echoed and bounced off the polished steel walls of the elevator into the overtolerant, solemn silence in that tiny enclosed space.

As soon as the double doors slid open the couple slid past us and hurried away as discreetly as possible, as if being pursued by werewolves. It was obvious, in their discomfiture, that they were going to treat us like rabid dogs, or the criminally insane — if they didn’t make eye contact, they could escape unscathed.

Tough luck for them that we just so happened to be heading in the exact same direction, so we had to follow them down the winding corridors, still hooting and staggering with laughter, stopping every few steps or so to catch our breaths before struggling forward again.

The funny thing of all this is that when we tried to retell it for everyone else, no one really seemed to get it — what a great moment it was.

And that’s maybe because it wasn’t so much about a silly moment on an elevator, but more because it was right about then that we knew we were really going to be best friends.

(Thank you for your friendship, Heather. In case I haven’t said so, before.)

Guest Post

Lets get a little housekeeping out of the way– it probably says “posted by Heather” or something similar on this post, but this isn’t Heather. She has been gracious enough to let me guest-post in the past, and I recently asked if I could guest-post again about something that has been weighing heavily on my heart. So thank you, Heather!

Speaking of Heather– I personally think she rocks. Seriously. Heather and her nurse-blogging kid-raising blogger-visiting Texas-loving Sandra-Bullock-looking self is my favorite nurse blogger! Of course, in all honesty she is the only nurse blogger I know, but that is really beyond the point.

ok, on to the angst…

I feel like I am failing my son.

Not–

“I feel like I have failed my son,” or “I feel like I will fail my son,” but “I feel like I AM failing my son.”

A little background, if you have the time. My son is eight years old, and he is severely dyslexic (although they don’t call it that anymore, they dance around the diagnosis, but that is the most widely-understood term in my opinion). He has just completed his first quarter of third grade, and as expected, it was a struggle. Every night, we go over every single thing that he has covered in school that day, we laboriously go over it and over it and over it. We drill the spelling words. We trace the words in shaving cream. We draw them in the air.

Nothing is working.

There is a more noticable disparity between he and his classmates. They are moving on without him. They are maturing at a diffferent rate than he is. They are running and playing with artless grace, while he is…. not. They are moving on.

I am panicked.

I don’t know what to do.

I do not know what to do.

I am lucky enough that I have the resources available (or rather, I have worked hard enough to have the resources available) to be able to pursue every avenue of treatment and therapy available, and some “under the radar,” that aren’t readily available. It isn’t working.

I panic if I really dwell on it.

There is something I am missing, there is a rosetta stone to my son SOMEWHERE that I just haven’t been able to find. There is a key to unlock him and fix him, I can’t let myself think that there isn’t. I love him with every fiber of my being. I want to shout at the entire school that he is smart and funny and witty, and not weird. And not slow.

Ahhhhhhhhh, what do I do, what do I do. I don’t know. Keep looking, keep searching I suppose. Until I figure it out. Because I am the best and most tenacious advocate he has– he would be lost in the shuffle if I weren’t demanding that his value be recognized.

But I am so incredibly tired, and I feel like I am failing him.