As with most resolutions that I make, I usually forget about them immediately. I'm like a goldfish. Something tonight made me remember that I had resolved to blog each day of winter vacation, right before hitting the pillow. Oh yeah...
We were expecting some guests today, some old friends. They called just as I was expecting them to show up from the next state over, and just as I was removing the brunch casserole from the oven, to say they hadn't even started their journey yet, and they were bringing more people, more old friends.
My anxiety kicked in. I nervously started dusting. I refrigerated the casserole. I hadn't seen all of these friends in a while. Surely they'll judge me. I had brunch food to offer but not lunch food. Whatever would I do.
They arrived, and the boys went to a gun show while the girls went shopping. Over coffee, we started talking about how our year has been. I unsurprisingly started crying, which I'm not even ashamed of doing in public anymore. We talked about my phobia (how I can't drive on the highways) and how I've just had a hard time dealing, even though life seems to be getting better these days. We talked about their anxiety problems. How one of them gets very stressed out behind the wheel. How the other one was hospitalized for intense physical pain associated with anxiety.
Then one friend said to me, "Laura, I'm going to give you some tough Cuban talk." She's Cuban. "You can't sit around feeling sorry for yourself. There are people who have it much worse than you. And everyone's a little bipolar."
I wasn't insulted. I didn't think I was feeling sorry for myself, but I hadn't seen her in a while and this was her reaction to me, to the way I was presenting.
We talked about regrets, we talked about fear for the future, and how hard it is to live in the present. And we laughed, too.
Then we had some wine at a restaurant and the guys joined us after their gun show extravaganza and we decided we were definitely going to get together again on New Year's Eve.
Comments