About Small Talk

It's difficult for me now.  I was never great at chit chat, but now it's pure agony.  When at a gathering, I'm approached by someone I haven't seen in a while and the dreaded question is asked.  Something along the line of "How are you?"  There's a hundred ways in which to ask this question and regardless of the way it's posed, it does the same thing to me.  I feel it first in my hands, as they instantly go clammy.  Then it runs up through my arms and lands right in the middle of my chest.

Does she really want to know?  And if so, how much?  Surely she doesn't want the gory details.  She's simply being polite because we're standing at the cooler of drinks and I'm reaching for one and so is she, and silence is terrible.  How am I?  I don't know how to answer that question.  The words want to burst out of me and keeping them contained is almost as painful and awkward as letting them out.  They want to explode, but she doesn't need that kind of verbal vomit all over her crisp and happy life.  And so, I answer with a lie.

"Things are great.  Just doing the usual."

God, it's such a lie.  Things are not great.  Things are messy.  Things are complicated.  Things are painful.  Nothing is clear.  Nothing is easy.  The path before me has never been so crooked.

Tonight we went to an annual football kick-off BBQ that we look forward to each year.  It's a time to see people we rarely get to see, and with it, comes a situation that always leaves me anxious because the days are always hard, and nothing has gotten better in the last year.  No one wants to hear that, as that's not why they came to the BBQ.  They came to enjoy an evening with friends and food and football.  But what few understand is that wherever we go, a crap load of heartache and discomfort follows.  

It cleared out and we remained while the kids finished up jumping in the bounce house.  It was a breath of fresh air to talk to a good friend that I hardly ever see, and it's sad because we are practically neighbors.  But life is busy, and it's hard to make time for commiseration with another broken person.  Her husband dropped dead of a heart condition six years ago when she was a young mom with a little toddler.  The road has been tumultuous for her, to say the least.  I love her to pieces and tonight after the crowd had gone, we stayed and talked about all the things that are difficult to keep inside.  You know, the real answer to that dreaded question that's too painful and inconvenient for many people.  But I felt like I could really tell her because she "got" it.

How am I?  Well, pull up a chair.  I'm glad you asked.

We finally said goodbye and vowed to get together before next year but as I was driving home, I had the thought that maybe I should start answering people at coolers with a bit more candor.  They ask the question at the cooler, and I lie.  I lie because it's easy, but perhaps I'm not giving them enough credit where credit is due.  Perhaps they really want to know how I'm doing.  Perhaps they remember that this horrible thing happened and it ripped us to pieces and no one simply gets over something like that and that the rippling effect is endless, as it's touched every fraction of our lives.  Maybe as we're standing there at the cooler, she wants to ask the obvious thing because she sees it on my face, but she doesn't want to upset me.  So she simply asks, "How are you?"

And I lie.  And I'm doing her a disservice by robbing her of the chance to be vulnerable with someone.  I believe that we are in this life together to learn from and help each other and when I lie, I'm doing nothing for either of us.  I know better than anyone that when we bleed in front of each other and allow them to nurse our wounds, that only then are we truly free to have this human experience in the manner that it was intended.  I need to bleed more.  I need to let others nurse more.  I say I'm an open book, but that's not true.  I need to be better at authentically bleeding because in doing that, we'll both learn something.

Ethan and I had these smiles glued on tonight, but it was a farce.  It's been a rough go for us lately, and it's okay for people to know that.  It's okay to not be perfect.  It's okay to show people just how imperfect we are.