Hypothetically

Hypothetically.  Let’s just say that you had this friend and you used to talk to this friend every day.  Then, over time, you maybe started to drift from them a little.  Perhaps you both got a bit busier, or maybe you procrastinated, or maybe you started feeling like you couldn’t think of anything to say to them or that whatever you could think of to say to them might be too boring or not funny enough to mention.  So let’s say that’s what happened and you started talking to them for shorter and shorter times and then maybe you would only call them once a week; just to say hi.  Now what if, one week, you forgot to call them.  Then the next week you didn’t have time.  Three weeks later you had a really funny story to share, but now you felt like if you called them, you’d have to explain where you’ve been and what if you had a great conversation but then you couldn’t talk to them again for a month?  Is that rude?  Would they be mad? 

Then suppose your life started to fall into a really, really grueling routine.  Suppose your industry failed and the market collapsed and you suddenly found yourself doing three people’s jobs and working sixty or seventy hours a week.  Maybe you didn’t have time to talk to your friend like EVER and even if you could find the time you wouldn’t know what to say.  “Hi, just stopping in to say that I REALLY think this whole thing is about to turn around.  I really genuinely feel like this summer/this fall/after this election/in the new year/when hell freezes over it’s all going to be all right.  By the way, could I interest you in a house?  No?  Some blood?  Plasma, then?  A vital organ?”  Let’s say that you did nothing but work and sleep.  Maybe your house became a disaster and you only ate fast food and your family started to worry about you and you essentially gave up every single thing in your life to cling to the completely unrealistic belief that there even was something you could do that would make any difference.

            Then, let’s say, that you got sick.  It was just a cold, but that it was the strangest cold you’d ever had.  Maybe it was a cold that seemed to be sentient.  Maybe it was cold that seemed to be able to tell when you took a day off and it would suddenly get worse.  And if you went back to work, it would get better.  What if you got an opportunistic cold that after having been around for a week already, suddenly spiked a fever within twelve hours of walking out of the office for the Thanksgiving weekend and completely took your voice.  What if you were able to “celebrate” the anniversary of that cold in weeks?  Months?  What if you had that cold for two months?  What if you still have that cold?

            Meanwhile you’re starting to wonder if your friend even still wants to hear from you.  After all, now you’re a boring, deluded workaholic with a chronic cough.  Who wants that around?  You’re trying to figure out if you should just act like you never went away in the first place and just strike up a conversation or if there wouldn’t been anyone there to have a conversation with anymore.

            Maybe that’s when you decided you should just stop worrying about it so much.  Maybe that’s when it occurred to you that you shouldn’t let whether or not someone was there to hear you talk stop you from talking.  Maybe you just missed the sound of your own voice.  Maybe you wanted to tell no one about your day or show no one your new light fixture.  Perhaps you had a really great recipe that no one might like or a very funny story that would make milk come out of no one’s nose.  Maybe that’s when you realized that you’d rather talk to no one than have no one to talk to.  Maybe that’s when you just decided to wing it.  Maybe that’s what you’re doing right now.

Comments

[Kim]

Wow! You have tons going on! I know this was a few months ago, but have things calmed down? Is the cold better? What about your job and the business? I've been absent a long time too and now feel like I'm playing catch up!