Cheaper than Therapy

A few months ago, David looked at our cell phone bill and asked (in a rather suspicious fashion) who I was calling 3-4 times a week at 8am and talking to for a half hour on my drive in to work. I admitted that my friend (I'll call her Judith rather than put her real name and associated admissions out in the street) and I used that time to chat, talk about how are lives are going complain or boast about our kids, jobs, politics, you name it. We cry, we laugh, we compare and contrast our childhoods and family dysfunctions. We admit things to each other that we probably don't admit to many other folks. It is our own personal rantfest. Another friend, who I'll call WH, and I have similar exchanges but not as often, mostly because she works from home and doesn't have the leisure (or burden) of a drive in rush hour traffic to let off steam. But oddly, our exchanges seem mostly to revolve around health and sex and relationships - probably because she teaches that to teens - but also because she's very frank in a way that other women tend not to be. She'll call and tell me about her health or ask me about something very personal in a way that is disarming and freeing, allowing you to open up in a way that you might not even feel comfortable doing with your own doctor without blushing. Some people have a gift, or a curse depending on how you look at it. I have other friends who are my food buddies or my home repair pals, women I can chat with about those subjects and bemoan the house fixing up that never gets completed or the challenges of finding gluten free pizza in the valley.

But the point is, we have these discussions, often, because they are not only enjoyable (and helpful) but because they make us happy. I knew this already from experience, but then was surprised and pleased to find an article in the New York Times called, “Why Sisterly chats Make People Happier,” and felt that what I had suspected all along had finally been validated. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/health/26essay.html) And the great thing is, the sisters don’t have to be biological sisters, just women with whom you connect with on a certain topic or no particular topic at all – someone you just know you can chat with and even the most frivolous or benign conversation will bring you as much comfort as that call which helps you through a bad diagnosis or a marital crisis.

Now whenever David looks at the cell phone bill and sees Judith’s number showing up repeatedly, he knows better than to comment. He realizes my sisterly chats with my friends are vastly cheaper than therapy (and far more enjoyable).

The End of Things

I don’t like endings. My mother always said you should look at an ending as an opportunity for a new beginning. She was frequently optimistic like that. I am not. I face newness with hesitation. I hate for things to end, not only because of the sadness of the loss, but because of the uncertainty that lies ahead. Summer is ending, kids are going back to school – new teacher, new classroom of friends, new set of parents, new academic challenges. This is my daughter’s last year in elementary school. That phase of her life is ending and in addition to heading into middle school and all the associated anxiety that goes along with that process – deciding where to go, which program best suits her, which school is good, affordable and geographically desirable and won’t require us to camp out overnight on the street to get her a permit to attend (seriously, it’s an option) – what will truly be ending is her time as a little girl. She’ll be diving head first into tweendom, complete with changing hormones and that teenage cockiness and confidence which can only come with a considerable lack of knowledge about how things really work. Although she’s not even a tween yet, I can see sparks of it already. From her eyeing my spot in the driver’s seat and envisioning herself there, to her new and growing love of phone, text and email, to the look of her face and body which no longer resemble the baby faced toddler who used to bounce on the sofa and sing along with Blues Clues.

I always get somewhat wistful around this time of year. I don’t like to see summer end, I never have. I don’t really relish endings of any kind. Once I get into a groove, I like it there. It is comfortable and secure and routine. That works for me. But endings mean change and that’s something I’ve never been fond of.

Endings in all possible variations are tough, and yet as mom said, they are really beginnings. Endings bring change. The changes may not feel desirable or even possible at first, but often, in retrospect, we realize that the changes were not only for the best, but that they were required to take us forward to the next step, to show us that we can cope and stand up and meet any challenge that change may bring. Seasons, school years, jobs, marriages, childhoods, relationships, lives – they all start and often end too soon and never in the way we planned or even expected.

There have been so many endings around me lately, not only my own, but for my friends and family. Sometimes I wonder how we’re all coping with the chaos caused by those changes. Then I started noticing how a friend who was dealt a terrible blow in her life, an ending that I can barely imagine dealing with, was moving on. In the face of an awful situation, she was okay, she was helping her children be okay, she was using the change to motivate her to step out of where she had been in life, where in fact she had felt stuck, and move on. I asked her how she continued to go to bed in the morning and get up at night. She smiled and joked, “…with lots of medications and a glass of merlot.” But stimulants aside, she said that despite what had happened, the ending which had turned her life upside down, she was oddly optimistic. She saw the ending as a beginning.