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.
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!
Posted by: Kim | March 28, 2009 at 09:42 PM