A Friend in Need

This isn't what I wanted to write about today.  I had an entirely different topic about something trivial that I planned to type on and on about and bore you all.  But things change--sometimes drastically and quickly.

I got a message from a friend this morning.  She asked if I was available for a talk because she had gotten some upsetting news.  It was the kind of news that takes time to process, like being suddenly laid off from your job, or hearing someone you know died unexpectedly or even like the tragedy of 9/11. 

We can't completely experience an emotional or psychological situation until it happens to us.  Our minds protect us from truly tragic or intense emotions if it can.  When something does happen, we're flooded with feelings of grief or shock or anger and those emotions can be overwhelming.  It can take time time to process a life-changing situation and accept it into our reality.

So my friend needed to talk.  And to cry.  And if you know me, no one cries alone when I'm around.  I would make the most useless psychologist and an even worse doctor because I would be crying with everyone all the time.  

We talked.  We discussed unknowns and alternatives.  We accomplished very little other than talking about things we didn't know the answer to, what with our total lack of any sort of future-telling device on hand.  We fretted.  And of course we cried.  But we laughed too.  We laughed as we were able to see something little, something meaningless, something silly in the grander scheme of the unknown that seemed so dismal at this moment in time.

We didn't solve anything because there was nothing to solve right here, right now, this day.   Grief is one of the slower emotions we work through in our lives.   But we made a start.

The Big Boy Update:  "Rick Ball"  There is something know as a Spoonerism.  When I was little I said, "pill dickle" instead of, "dill pickle."  My son is carrying on the tradition of spoonerisms in our family when he called the brick wall a, "rick ball" the other day. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Coloring on the table.  After school I got a large sheet of brown paper and completely covered the breakfast table.  Both children liked coloring all over the table top.  My daughter wanted me to draw around her hand again and again.   We left the paper on for dinner so we'll have to draw more after we eat this evening.