...and ignite your bones

On Thursday night, I'm meeting two friends for coffee. In a normal frame of mind, this planned evening out would be a nice diversion. I'd be looking forward to a few hours spent catching up and laughing.

Instead, I'm dreading it. And I'm not meeting them. They are coming to my home, pulling me from it, and taking me somewhere where I can then sit before them and they can wait for me. To talk. To tell them what's been keeping me from them and anyone else who so graciously gives me the gift of their friendship for the last few months. "Something is wrong with you," one of them said to me when, unable to avoid her telephone calls any longer, I was made to return her most recent. "Something is wrong. You don't have to get into it now, on the telephone, but we see that something is bothering you and we want to help you if we can."

That part where she said they could see it made me laugh. A very quiet, dejected chuckle hidden under the even quieter tears she didn't know were already falling as we spoke. As I inserted the appropriately placed "OKs" and "uh huhs" into our brief conversation, I wondered how they could see that something must be wrong with me when I thought I'd been making a pretty good effort of not showing them. Isn't that what a couple of months of avoiding people is good for? I thought I'd become a master of such a trick lately.

But this dear friend is right. There's something wrong with me at the moment. It's not physical nor fatal nor hateful. But it's something that crushes my spirit and makes me panicky. Were I truly wanting to speak about it and have you bear witness to the emotional wreck it makes me, I'd just spill it to you all. But as honest as I've always been here (always), I trust you'll just take what I'm not saying and be fine with it. What I love about this type of venue is how wonderfully nonjudgmental and supportive a circle of anonymous people can be. Amazing and just as humbling as my real life friends would treat me. It's just harder for me to accept their kindness because now they're not going to allow me to not say why I've been the way I've been now for awhile. I can see them and touch them and sometimes their love for me shocks me because I don't feel I deserve it as often as they so wish to give it to me.

(Oh, I read and reread that above paragraph and God, I'm not fishing for help or compliments or kindness or whatever. I'm just saying that during this past year, I've been amazed at how so many of you have stepped into my life and become friends willing to commit that gift to me and how saying thank you for such a thing seems not enough.)

Were I willing to talk about it (and I have, before, with people in my life, but it just drains me and some days I want to be full), I would. I'd probably scream about it and be angry. Now I just try not to. I suppose it's because I want to enjoy that brief reprieve and that sense of calm I notice I've experienced when I realize I've not thought about these matters for a time. This is part of why I dread Thursday night. I won't be allowed to not think about it, to not talk about it. I love my friends immensely. Many of my friendships forged in adulthood happened so spontaneously and at a time when it almost seemed like God or someone just knew I was going to need these people in my life that I'm quite grateful for them. But I'm not used to being the one upon whom this type of intervention, for lack of a more appropriate word, is staged. I'm the girl who'll hold your eye long enough to tell you I'm fine, yeah, and then glance around the place for a way to change the topic so it rests on you. Or search for some sarcastic twist of a phrase that I can apply to myself when I don't feel comfortable with the questions I'm being asked. I do not wish to cry like I'm afraid I will in front of these women. I want to appear as if I've got this thing I've been dealing with for a long time now under control already. Wish I didn't feel like that. Wish I could thank them for caring and then open up without the shame or sadness or whatever that weighs on me.

I just dread the idea of Thursday night. And even though I know I'm saying nothing here, I just needed to say that so that maybe I could look at this later and convince myself there's nothing to dread when remembering that people who love me wouldn't make me do this if they didn't truly wish to help. And that it's OK to take it.