Friendship in a Constantly Changing World

“Change is hard, big or small,” wrote my Grandma, nearly word for word, in the last legible handwritten notecard she sent.

It came just days before she went into surgery for her fourth hip replacement (long story.) 

Grandma recovered from that surgery in 2006, but then she suffered a stroke. While she recovered from that, one day, months later, she got pneumonia and would not live to be with the family for Thanksgiving that year. 

Change is hard, big or small. 

I heavily grieved the loss, and still do, of her active presence in my everyday life. At first, I was not sure what I would do if I couldn’t go to the mailbox and find a handwritten card from her. I called her answering machine, over, and over, and over again. 

Lately, all I seem to notice is change. 

Friends move away, people change jobs, friends get married, have babies, or get divorced and move on. 

In my naive youth, I once said, “I need to see change constantly.” 

Perhaps that’s not so surprising considering I work in an industry that thrives on changing events as they happen, and even I have an adrenaline rush when plans change last minute and I am forced to adapt. 

Is it possible this is why some of us listen to the same song over and over again? Or, is it why one of my best friends and I chose to watch Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion possibly 80 times before we started college? 

Even still, while I am a little bit attention-deficit and talk in circles sometimes, I need a constant much more than I need constant change. 

Perhaps, just possibly, we wanted so badly to stay in a place that we knew we couldn’t stay in anymore, so we found something that would stay the same. 

Driving to work, while doing laundry, or even staring down the road of nothing on a treadmill, I’ll think of people and wonder if any of the people in my life are perchance the one person who makes all the torn seams come together.

As a Christian who struggles with just as much as the next person, the only constant I know is my Lord and Savior. Yet, I’m also of this life and living in it now and know that I look for a constant here, too. I am not entirely sure if it is a faith issue as much as it is a human issue. 

   It may even just be a living creature issue! Elephants know this, dogs know this; even dogs and elephants together know this to be true (and the subsequent heartache that comes in losing their friend.) 

TARRA, the elephant, and BELLA, the dog in 2009 (CBS News)

  The Bible itself says two are better than one, and three are better than two (Ecc 4:9 -12).

If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.

The key is in not getting stuck on just one person. Two may be better than one, but not if you’re the only two people standing. I’ve learned this lesson in friendship before. 

Tonight, I raise my glass to the friends of all walks of life, different parts of my life, and the people I haven’t met yet. 

Let us thank God and nurture the friendships that validate us, support our inner spirit, keep our light from burning out, and encourage us to never give up, and do the same for them.

LEARN MORE ABOUT TARRA AND BELLA:

One Elephant Sanctuary, Unlikely Friends - November 2010

Tarra and Bella: Elephant Loses Man's Best Friend - November 2011

The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee

   

A Blank Page Everyday

Seeing how I cannot seem to bring myself to spend the time creating a new blog home, I guess I will continue writing here. That is, at least, for awhile.

Returning now, to where we once were:

The construct (which is a word I like a lot, by the way, after years of it being drilled into my head by literature professors) of the day I revisited my friend wasn’t much different than visits in the past. As in many friendships, I found myself calmly surrendering, moment by moment, so that the reunion could actually happen. Simple as it were, the conditions on how we were to meet up changed at the last minute. Unlike the rigid tendency of lasting relationships and others saturated with disappointment, I politely obliged. The point was, and as it should likely be in any friendship, to spend time  together. It’s hard to catch up on six years in just a couple hours. 

She couldn’t believe it had been six years, she said, as we hopped in the car to visit her eldest child’s school. A treat, I thought to see this girl who, herself, was six years old when I first met her. College is now just around the corner and I grappled with the very thought of that. Then, I had to pause and remember that I was 19 then, and I am certainly not 19 anymore.

“Let me just tell you,” she said as we pulled out of the driveway. That’s how the conversations begin. I listened for a few minutes, and also talked, about my own circumstance and how things had evolved over the past few years. Although, we both only really focused on recent months. The situations were different but the themes were the same: heartache, growth, discovery, and hope. When is it really ever different?

“I am so tired,” she was saying. It sounded so familiar.

Ten, maybe eleven, years earlier I remember driving East on a freeway in very similar, but not so similar, circumstances. We intended to spend time together, but the course of the day changed, and I went along for errands and chores and what not. I went, just so what would normally be a forty-five minute to an hour visit could actually happen. It just took about three hours. 

Yes, I talked too. Just not as much as I used to.

         A blank page looks a lot like what a real friendship is, friendships of all kinds and varying degrees of time spent. 

Years earlier, as I previously discussed, my college roommate and I celebrated in denial of the discovery that we were friends. Yet, just because we had this very honest realization didn’t mean we suddenly understood it. Nor did it mean that it, this friendship (or any, for that matter), would be easy.

These two friendships are entirely different but incredibly parallel. I was discovering one as I was discovering the other, and it hurt the growth of both.

I think I was in denial of that, too.

“You’re never home,” or something to that effect, said my college roommate to me on the cell phone as I was driving home from my other friend’s house. I was never home because I was either at school, like she was, or at work part time, or babysitting. It was true I was hardly ever home. Then, when that phone call was made, I didn’t understand or feel the emotional significance of that statement. Looking back, it has a deep meaning when I recall being the one who used to fetch ice cream for bad days and stay up all night laughing and giggling when things were funny. It is true, I did not have time, nor did I make time, for that anymore. 

There’s no use on wasting time on guilt, nor do I have any regrets. I just thank God I have both these friends today. 

You get a blank page with real friendships. You get a blank page everyday. 

Discovery Begins with Denial

When I started this blog, I didn’t think there would be such long periods of time in-between one post and another. Yet, I certainly didn’t think I would write everyday either.

I’ve thought about writing a few times since the first of the year, but thought I had promised to start over.

 Starting over, it seemed at the time, involves an entirely new creative process. I thought, how can I start over if I don’t have a new blog title, a new purpose, and actually help people? That is the goal, after all.

 Most writers don’t spend time penning something just because they have a story inside them that is burgeoning and begging to be told. They end up writing that story because they believe it will help someone.

            Six years and a lifetime of experience later, I found myself at the doorstep of a home that once represented everything I had hoped for. Before ringing the bell, or knocking, I looked around at a landscape that had mostly stayed the same.

            Calm, and completely composed, I rang the bell. Then, I turned and looked out at the view, remembering years ago telling a friend, “I can see my parents’ house from here.”

            I continued gazing out into the past, as it were, and wondered how many dreams had come true since I last visited; how many dreams shattered.

            When the door opened, I found myself 19 again, but much more confident. I was visiting a former colleague, who at one point had been the person who initiated a catalyst of change in my professional life. It was her husband who answered the door.  In the few moments we stood there talking, filling years of time with quips about the business and personal goals, this long-awaited reunion felt nothing like what happens in the movies. Perhaps the most significant marker of time passing was in the age of their children, and the great height one of them now stood. Where was that little girl I used to baby-sit, I wondered.

            My friend came downstairs and in a moment, what felt like six years felt like six minutes and a lifetime in the same moment. Unlike some of my closest friendships (and even the ones you know you are supposed to keep up), we didn’t pick up right where we left off, but we did.  

            “It hasn’t been six years,” she exclaimed. I confirmed, with proper memory and data to back it up. “No way!”  

            Denial seems to be the first indication that two people were ever friends to begin with.

            I remember, years earlier, around the time I first met my friend, I was having dinner with my college roommate and her mother. I think it was Mother’s Day weekend of freshman year. That second semester, she and I had every single class – but one, together. I don’t remember what we were eating, or where we went to eat, but I do remember what I was wearing. I remember, because we took a picture that night upon a moment of discovery (or, at least I think we did).

            My college roommate’s mom said, “Oh, you guys are friends.” The two of us looked at each other, shrugged, kind of in shock, and denied it. I remember the awareness of that fact, and not the circumstances surrounding it, like it was yesterday.

            Discovery begins with denial.

            There.

            I’m going to let that stew for a bit.

Miracle: Rediscovering Grace in the Restoration of Faith

December 4th

Miracle: Do you feel you experienced or witnessed miracle this year? How so?

It might depend on how you describe a miracle. Some people describe seeing them in the moonlight, or in the sunshine, or in how the rays of sun glisten through clouds.

Miracles, for me, come through receiving grace. It seems that it often takes feeling a hurt deeper than you ever have felt before and sensing that your friendships, or your job, or your sanity will come crashing down. The sense of feeling as if you don’t do something and quickly you’ll never recover is what I call grace and a defining moment. 

A long-term relationship ended just shy of one year ago. It pained me and yet I so desperately wanted to prove that I was going to be fine and that I could move on, I pushed myself to move on and be alright without ever actually confronting why it hurt so bad to begin with. Several months passed before I realized that this "thing" I wasn't dealing with could destroy every other relationship I had: feelings of doubt, feelings of mistrust, and a general feeling of abandonment. 

I was exhausted - emotionally, hurting and fearing that the people I love and who I believe cared about me and sustained me during the initial difficult time would back away. 

Tired, feeling very much alone, and with nowhere to go, I went to a Church. It wasn’t like any Church I’d ever been to... a satellite campus and broadcasted at  a high school auditorium. Yet, I walked without resistance into the quad of the campus to see a sign that said, “A Place Where It’s OK to Not Be OK.” I immediately felt tears streaming down my face. 

I was undoubtedly torn. At one point, I didn't know who I could trust nor did I know why I wondered and doubted that. This Church I had just walked into announced they were starting a series called, "Torn: Trusting God When Life Leaves You in Pieces." 

The Pastor, Jud Wilhite, said at the beginning, "Maybe you don't know why that relationship ended, or maybe you don't know why it hurts." The tears at this point poured down my face. 

I thought, and somewhat still believe that the people I wanted to confide in, or had already vented to, may have considered me too emotional, or presumed I would have already moved on. I felt as though also these people I loved had their own concerns that I didn’t want to bother them. My ears heard the words, "It's not about you." 

My heart ached. Of course it wasn't, it was about all of them. I wanted to be there for my friends and for my family but knew I couldn't because the hurt I felt inside was greater than any love - at that moment - that I could receive or offer. 

Drug addicts.

Domestic violence victims.

Assault survivors.

Foreclosures.

Job loss. 

And so on... 

Many of us often rationalize that our hurts, a simple breakup, or the natural end-of-life death of a loved one, are not significant enough in either the eyes of God or our peers because our neighbors may be dealing with something that much "worse" or difficult.

In discovering grace, it becomes known that it doesn't matter what it is because you're the only one who is experiencing it. Only you know what it feels like to lose the job, to be abused, to have lost your house or try to quit... something. The one common theme is that each of us can be torn by that one issue only one of us knows about. That's where we can come together. 

So, when I realized my life had left me emotionally in pieces, I chose to seek my faith. It was the beginning of the return back to feeling at peace with myself, at the risk of losing loved ones and friends in the process.

Whether fortune or unfortunately, I had to work at rebuilding my faith, then myself, before I could tackle anything else. It's now all an evolving process. 

Torn: Lyric Video from Central Online on Vimeo.
My prayer for the end of this year, is that through the restoration of faith and self-worth, may also my relationships with family and friends be restored too. That also, one day, if a friend is hurting and feeling like they need to climb out of darkness, I can either have the awareness or the invitation to offer a hand in that climb.

Join the Journey. Answer the Prompts & Tweet Your Link using #resonate11 & #reverb11

Putting the Puzzle Pieces of Life Together

In five days it will be one year since I started this blog process. It started out as one kind of journey, and as life changed, it has become another. 

Writing often helps one put the
puzzle pieces of life together.

The other night, while on an airplane traveling to a getaway I wrote a poem. Writing, for me, has always been an idiosyncratic process. It just happens. When I write what reads like a poem or song lyrics to me the words flow in one stream of consciousness. Once, I wrote a two page poem, front and back, while in between classes in college. I had about seven minutes to do it.

Sometimes, with writing, the words just come because the story is already in the author. 

At the top of the page on yellow legal pad paper I wrote, “Written just shy of 11 months from the day since my life changed (not that anyone is counting).” I wanted to put some finality on the shock that comes when a relationship ends; or rather, when my relationship ended. 

If you remember, I started this blog because my boyfriend at the time would call me things that hurt my feelings. The ending of the relationship though, when that happened, it hurt more. Then, there were a lot of other feelings that came out over the course of time. Removed, I finally had a way to address what it felt like in that instant that everything changed. 

Who knows, maybe this will help you or someone you know deal with the pain, heartache, grief, or whatever it is. 

I don't know what you just said.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

Tell me one more time that everything

is not alright.

Cuz I can't think.

I'm lost inside.

I can't find - 

Where am I supposed to go?

You said goodbye, I know

That part I got right.

I'm sorry, but I don't know why?

Tell me one more time that everything

is not alright.

Cuz I can't hear you.

I'm not listening.

I can't find - 

Where am I supposed to go?

You're gone, You're gone.

I'm all alone, all alone.

Just get up and say goodbye. 

It's not for me to leave.

I'm sorry, you've got to go.

I don't know what you just said.

I'm sorry, I missed it.

But that don't matter now -

You're gone, alright, and out of my life.

and now I'm free

Thank God you had to leave.

I am free.

Now that I'm who I'm supposed to be.

And I am fine.

Everything is alright. 

How do you deal with loss? With heartache? What’s your method of dealing with what you know to be good (like the ending of a relationship that should have ended) and also with the sadness that it ended anyway? Do you allow yourself to realize that it’s alright and natural to feel both relief and sadness at the same time? Let me know what you think. If you want... 

Photo Courtesy:  http://uwbwritingcenter.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/confession-i-write-poetry/

I'm Not Asking "Why?" Anymore

I looked at my phone for what felt like hours waiting for it to buzz or ring or light up.

Nothing. 

My own wrestling with patience prevented anyone from contacting me first, or so it seemed. That’s because I would stop at almost anything to communicate with someone at randomized, seemingly perfect for me, moments. 

“Think about what you need to do for yourself in those moments,” someone said to me recently. I cannot remember the exact wording now, but they continued and said, “Instead of thinking about what hurts or why its hurting, try to figure out what needs to be healed.” 

Have you ever been hurt and knew exactly what you needed to do to help yourself heal? Could you figure out the first step? 

“That’s a good idea,” I said back. In fact, it seems quite simple now that I think about it. After all, when I was younger it was pretty simple to figure out the first step towards healing. 

When you fall down, you get back up again.

When I was eight, I got on my bicycle and started riding it down the steep back hill of our development. It’s not for certain, but I believe I might have been carrying other things with me, weighing down bicycle with a faster speed to the bottom of that hill. Half way down, the front wheel skirted right, the back went left, and I landed underneath it and the bicycle dragged me about ten more feet. I don’t remember if I cried, but I probably did. I have a scar on the inside of my elbow that reminds me just how deep the road carved into me as the bicycle dragged me down the hill. In that moment, I didn’t need to figure out why it hurt or what had happened. It was quite obvious! So, I, in a sobbing and tearful, bloody mess begrudgingly walked my bicycle back up the hill and home. 

Not all hurts are that easy to figure out, and for most people the hurts become a little more complicated when you get older. Not the hurts, but the cause, and the why sometimes is impossible to figure out. Then, sometimes, we, I know I do, get stuck in wondering why something happened that we cannot see the first step.

One thing is for sure, I’m not asking Why? anymore. 

As a child: “Why did Sigmund (the cat) die?”

Parent: “She wasn’t feeling well and she’s in a better place.”

As a teenager: “Why couldn’t I go to the college I wanted to go to?”

Parent: “Because it wasn’t what you thought it was going to be.”

As an adult: “Why did he leave me?”
Parent: “It’s for the best.”

It’s interesting, I think, that the answers are easy when we’re younger and they are more vague as we get older. More deeply, because when we ask such a deep question like, “Why did he leave me?” or “Why did she have to get cancer?” we most likely wouldn’t be happy with the answer. It would not bring us the joy that we so long hoped to feel again.

When I hurt, sometimes I hit the gym and I pound my feet on the rotating belt as if it were pavement. It’s as if I’m chasing after some sort of something on the horizon and I never get there. Other times, I hang out with friends and occasionally enjoy more than what I need to enjoy when it comes to wine. Or, I write down stories that I hope would make sense of the pain. 

Since my last post, I decided to stop asking why and just go to the source that my Grandma taught me as a young girl: my Faith. Instead of asking myself again, why did my life change in the way it did, I asked who will still love me tomorrow? 

If you’re not a Christian, or have never been to Church, it may not make sense to you. But, for me, the message that I knew, and had heard, and trusted for years was much more loud than it ever has been before. In Romans 8, the Bible says, If our God is for us, then who can be against us? 

That’s real soul food, and real comfort, for me, on this journey... to something fabulous. 

If you're interested in learning more about the Bible, please check out this website. 

On Coming and Going

11:14 PM Nashville, TN time, July 4, 2011

Preface:

It's been a long time since I wrote. Not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I was busy living. Not thinking about it or worrying about it, but just living. 

Coming and going.

There's been a lot of that in my life the last several weeks. I graduated (but didn't travel) from Boston University with a Master's Degree. I shut down my computer for everything but work and social media and lived and laughed up life.

I went to Palm Springs and soaked up the sun and made a lot of new memories... Stories I will tell my children one day.

Mom and Dad came to visit and bought all my "new" friends their drinks. My Mom even did a shot.  In this visit my parents became my friends.

My two best friends came to visit and a friend from my Palm Springs days did too and we all partied together.

Then, I went. I packed for what would be three full days and three nights of a weekend that could only be described as life-changing. I went to Nashville, TN to be picked up from the airport by one of my most favorite people so I could meet his beautiful and awesomely wonderful wife. Then we, my same friend who visited just two weeks ago, another friend, too, all piled in a car to drive to Chattanooga. Another friend was getting married.

I hadn't slept in 36 hours and couldn't have been happier. I had three of my favorite people - two of my favorite men - sandwiched in a car for two hours.

I couldn't even begin to tell you the rest of the weekend. We went to a comedy murder mystery theater and laughed. I shared a room with a friend that made us laugh so much we couldn't believe our friendship brought us across the country.

There is more. I went to this wedding and was so blessed to have it as a tool or a reason to see one of my best friends. My heart felt torn for the four years I had let (yes...  let) go by. I cried inside and we immediately started planning my return. What a beautiful friendship to meet someone's wife and start a friendship as if we had been friends for years. To meet his Mom and feel as though I was talking to my own. Yes, I cried a little upon coming, but going was the hardest part.

Somehow, the universe might have known and flight delays kept me on the East coast for all of the 4th of July.

It's Independence Day. Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing, let the whole world know that this is a day of reckoning.

This day meant so much to me, and I spent five hours of it in an airport. I came off a weekend of creating new memories and new friendships and different relationships. I am, was, spent. I sat next to a woman at the airport bar.

Airport Mom said to me (I will paraphrase) "Karma is about things happening for a reason, it is not payback." 

It's a statement, even as a woman of Christian faith, that I enveloped my emotional heart around. I wondered, when you feel you left a piece of your heart somewhere or with someone, do you get that back? How? Is it by returning? Is it by faithful or divine intervention? Is going really going? Is it just the beginning of something you never anticipated beginning? Is missing someone the unexpected indication that you love them more than you thought?

Airport Mom's husband passed away in May. She had just returned from seeing her first husband on her getaway trip. She said she loved her second husband. Their time was so short, and she believed she served a purpose in his life, and he hers. Somehow, their path was the road that may lead her back to her first husband. The true love of her life.

If a chance meeting at an airport bar provides a lifetime of wisdom; imagine what a chance encounter at a wedding can do? Or a split decision amongst friends to share a hotel room? Or to eat Twizzlers? 

We are all coming and going to somewhere - where the heart is, where we hope the grass is greener, to where we believe we really belong. 

It's in that coming and going that we really live. It's not in that destination. This weekend I lived possibly more than I have in years. I lived in the in-between of coming and going, knowing it was not a short-lived reunion. It was just a passage of time leading to several lifetime friendships.

I hate goodbyes, but there are no goodbyes in coming and going.

"I'll see you soon."

To my friends referred to here, I love you more than I can articulate.

To my Airport Mom, I am in awe of your optimism and honest contemplation of your life's path, and the reminder to relish in the journey. Now, I really do understand that everything does happen for a reason.

That is the richest lesson, however full of heartache, one could ever stand to learn.

Thinking About that "Movie Moment"

Have you ever had a “movie moment?” Or, better yet, what would you consider a movie moment?

Sometimes, in social situations, or within my own thought process, I find myself saying aloud, “Wow, that was a movie moment.”

You know what I’m talking about...

It’s that moment when he realizes that she is the one. Or, the moment that they both realize they’re in on the joke together. Or, the aha moment! that two people, friends, or lovers, have when they discover they are far more similar than they ever thought possible. 

You know the line (thanks Harry from When Harry Met Sally): “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!” 

But, have you ever been watching a movie and felt that you already had your own movie moment and completely blew it? Have you ever actually found yourself standing in the rain somewhere about ready to tell some guy or some girl that you want to marry them some day and then you don’t?

Here’s the thing. It was more than 10 years by the time I found out that a guy from high school waited outside my sophomore year English class every day and I just walked right by him. Why don’t you people say anything? What’s more, I wonder why even bother telling me now? 

Is there some “hopeful romantic” (not hopeless, but hopeful) thread running through all of us? Do we all somehow sit there and think that the guy we’re having dinner with has been thinking all the same things we’re thinking, but all we do is think it? 

To all the people who say that this (real life) is not the movies, I say yes, that is true. However, we’re all just as stupid and vague and love-struck as all of those movie characters in those predictable movies. We just don’t have a music track to cue the aha-moment!, or the run to him or her in the rain, or the “it’s you” revelation.

What’s your movie moment?

Doing Things to Make Myself Feel Foolishly Better

Let’s try something new today. I’m asking you, are you married? Do you want to be? Do you want to not be? 

Does the whole, “the grass is always greener on the other side” approach work here or no? 

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. 

Nope, not quite. Was the bridesmaid once. Not always. Yet, definitely I’ve never been the bride.

When I was younger, too young to have been married, I watched “The First Wives Club” starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton. Loved it.

This weekend I went to a bridal shower.

A person kept asking people at my table whether we were married, and she got to me and asked, “And, how about you?”

I said, “Oh, no.” 

The person sitting across from me noted the inflection in my tone made that answer sound so sad. She said I should have said, “Oh, no” without reservation and more earnest decision that said I was OK with it.

Honestly, I am ok with the fact that I’m not married. First of all, there’s no one to marry at the moment, and unlike my Mother’s freshman year of college prediction, I will not marry the first man who knocks on my door. 

As the events carried out throughout the afternoon I also thought back to that episode of “Friends” where Monica, Rachel, and Phoebe all try on wedding dresses. I converged my thoughts between that scene and the aforementioned movie, and thought, “Oh my gosh, its the haven’t been wives club!” 

Honestly, there should be such a thing! First of all, I like to cook. I like to cook for people. Secondly, I like to clean and have a clean house, but living alone does not inspire me to do it all the time. Third, I have a cat. That almost qualifies me to be in the “Haven’t Been Wives Club.” That, and the whole running of the brides thing scares me. 

It’s a new thing. I started it. Wanna join? 

Question for you: If you could start a club, what would you start? Or, have you ever tried to come up with a scenario to somehow make yourself feel foolishly better about still being single (or anything else for that matter)? 

PHOTO COURTESY: http://www.ooooopanda.com/

Don't Wait Until the Line Goes Dead

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Pick up.

Pick up who?

Pick up the phone, damn it! 

A doorbell sounds off in the background.

Or, maybe it was the sound of a honking horn. Or, maybe a knock at the door.

There is a ringing of sorts.

It’s also the ripping and rippling sound of opening something...

It’s Christmas morning, you might think. Tearing open presents?

Nope. 

It’s a party in the parking lot, and car alarms are going off? 

Nope. It’s not that either.

Then, what is it? Some people might wonder. 

It’s communication. 

Courtesy Bluntcard.com

Consider me old-fashioned, or group me in with the pair of Grumpy Old Men types that I saw while getting my car fixed the other day. Although, I think after I tell you what the conversation went sounded like, you might agree with me. That is, unless, you’ve already closed this window and logged onto Facebook, or responded to a text, or ignored a text... (And yes, I'm just as guilty of this as everyone else). 

“He got rid of the woman who was going to bury him into the ground,” said a a Grumpy Old Man at the place I went to get my car worked on. 

“You have to do that!” said the other. 

“We have to be careful, we’re going to hurt this young lady’s feelings,” said the third. 

No, I’m fine, I thought. “It goes both ways,” I said aloud. “I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, or if it’s a spouse or a friend, we all have one that might bury us into the ground.” 

“What does that mean,” said Grumpy Old Man Number 2. 

Gee, what did I mean? I honestly wasn’t even sure. So, I looked up at Grumpy Old Man Number 1 and he said, “It’s about communication.”

Bingo! Another hot pan came flying at my face. Figuratively, of course. So, I said, without second thought, “Why is it so hard to pick up the phone and call someone? How come we have to text answers to questions that deserve more thought?" 

Grumpy Old Man Number 2 looked at me and said, “The only thing you can do is turn off your phone.” 

WHAT? Seriously. How on Earth would anyone, in this day in age, survive by turning off their phone?

Just then, a young man, close to my age, came into the shop. After going through the few mandatory steps of dropping the car off for work, the man behind the counter, Grumpy Old Man Number 3, asked for a cell phone number.

“I don’t have one,” said the Young Man Without A Cell Phone. Grumpy Old Man Number 3 looked baffled, and I, on the inside thought, I bet he doesn’t have a single distraction and anyone who actually wants to know him knows how to get a hold of him. 

The conversation with the Grumpy Old Men continued for a while after the Young Man Without a Cell Phone left. At one point, I looked down at my own cell phone and wondered, “Who is going to call me?” 

Someone, maybe. Someone other than the hairstylist. Someone other than the pharmacy telling me that my prescription is ready. Someone other than my Mom who calls most of the time anyway. Who knows, maybe I'll call you. 

Pick up the phone, damn it. Don’t wait until the line goes dead.  


UPDATED March 13, 2011: I couldn't help but notice that I listened to Madonna's, "Hung Up," shortly after posting this. It's kind of relevant, isn't it?