Unassigned
I believe it was Ghandi who taught us to suffer in silence.
I’d like to imagine that as a young girl I stumbled across his story in the history section of the public library and was so moved by it that I modeled my life after him.
This could not be farther from the truth.
But somehow, somewhere I developed the habit of keeping the painful parts of my life quiet. For as long as I can remember, my MO has been “I’m fine” and my instinct has been to go through hard times alone.
Which – I can admit now – is the dumbest thing ever.
As I got older I started to discover this tendency and began to notice my behavior, and whenever a heartbreak or loss would happen I would retreat into solitude faster than a Chicago summer.
Looking back, I see the various people that have come into my life that have tried to break through that wall, that have tried to catch me before I went into hiding. Each one of them had the same message: you do not have to go through this alone.
I recently had an experience that brought all of this into crystal clear focus.
It was a Wednesday. I had just gotten into a fight with one of my dearest friends. And it was one of those gut-wrenching fights that feels like a terrible, nonsensical nightmare.
I had plans to meet a group of girlfriends in a few hours and, true to form, it suddenly had the appeal of a root canal.
Faster than you can say ‘Casimir Pulaski,’ I shot off an email to the group saying I wasnt going to make it tonight. I think my lame excuse was something along the lines of “Sorry, gang, had a crazy day – not gonna make it tonight.” Which, in retrospect, has the sincerity of an out of office message. All I knew at the time was that I wanted to be alone and hibernate.
As soon as I hit send, a familiar feeling washed over me. That feeling you get when you accidentally sleep through a meeting or hit ignore when your talkative friend from high school calls.
The feeling you get when you hide.
Next I did another standard move in my repertoire of suffering in silence:
I snacked.
And let me tell you, I can snack with the best of ‘em.
I got out pretzels, a banana and a jar of crunchy peanut butter. (This is the point when you withhold judgement of me because clearly I was in no mindset to be making rational snacking decisions.)
And then my phone rang.
It was Annie, one of the friends I was supposed to get together with that night.
“I know what you’re doing,” was the first thing she said.
“Umm, you do?” I responded, hand hovering over the open peanut butter jar – not entirely sure she wasn’t watching me through the window.
“Yes,” she continued, “You’re avoiding us because something bad happened.”
Reading my silenced response as permission to go on she said, “And I only say this because I love you, but did you ever think that this is the exact moment when you need people?”
I was speechless – which, you can imagine, is a bit of a rarity for me – but managed to muster up a weak affirmative that I was, in fact, upset and that I would try it her way tonight.
When we hung up, I felt a new feeling. I think it’s called relief. Or maybe it’s called support. Even in her forcing me to admit what I was doing and acknowledge that I needed help, I already felt better.
Now, I’m not going to fool anybody and pretend that I am now the girl who gathers people around her every time she is dealt a blow. Nor am I going to imply that I don’t still feel inclined to hide the hard moments of my life in favor of the sunny ones. But I will say this: it is a powerful thing to let people into the dark parts of your story. And it’s even more powerful to realize that those people love you even more for it.
