Lost
A lot's been happening, and most of it has been very much the opposite of fantastic. I don't really think it's my place to tell it, but I am not sure how to describe this without saying it; Kerry has had a loss in her family back home. If it were me in her place, I'd probably be a raving mess; she is somehow holding it together, and I honestly don't know what I should be doing to try and help. (And I feel like I should be, but maybe that's wrong, too.)
It's sometimes hard for me to grasp how differently we handle emotion, and it's still not always clear to me what is big or small or what to her as opposed to how I see things. Maybe it's because we view a lot of things similarly, or used to, and I am kind of used to having a similar take on things to her, so it's jarring when she's so different. Maybe parenthood changes people? Maybe I'm getting more emotional/crazy as I age? But I know this can't be easy, because there are very few people for whom close death is easy, and I feel like maybe I can do something to help... But I've never been good at comforting people. I don't know what to say, and I don't know how not to... "belittle" is not the word I'm looking for, it's making someone else's experiences seem, eh, smaller or whatnot by relating it to a similar but less strongly impacting event in my own life. Relating things to other things is sort of the thing I do well, hence why most of my explanations involve a lot of analogies, so that's the natural thing to do for me, and in terms of sad happenstance, it's apparently not the thing to do :( It's not helping that I can tell that I'm not thinking fully straight anymore (yay continued sleep problems), and I'm just worried that I'm going to say something incredibly insensitive (my rather morbid humor is NOT appropriate in this situation) or do something that might upset her. Or, on the other hand, that I may miss the opportunity to do something that could make her feel better when she's going through something so incredibly rough. Thus far she's somewhat just avoided the subject, so I've been trying to follow her lead and not bring it up, but I can't help wondering if I was supposed to send flowers or a sympathy card or something? I don't even know what I'd write in a sympathy card. (Or the card that goes with the flowers.) I wear my heart on my sleeve and am very vocal about the pecking daws that come with that sort of thing, but Kerry's always held her cards close to her chest and I don't have a lot of clues or cues to go on, so maybe I'm to go with what's traditional. Except, yeah, the sympathy card and flowers is more of a distance thing, and I'm here, and I'm supposed to lend support, but I don't know how to do that. And I feel like maybe she wouldn't want my support anyway. I don't know how to be a good friend in this situation, and maybe I don't know how to be a good friend in general, but I've got to take it one step at a time and this is what's in front of me right now :(
I just don't know what to do, or what to say, or where to be.
It's sometimes hard for me to grasp how differently we handle emotion, and it's still not always clear to me what is big or small or what to her as opposed to how I see things. Maybe it's because we view a lot of things similarly, or used to, and I am kind of used to having a similar take on things to her, so it's jarring when she's so different. Maybe parenthood changes people? Maybe I'm getting more emotional/crazy as I age? But I know this can't be easy, because there are very few people for whom close death is easy, and I feel like maybe I can do something to help... But I've never been good at comforting people. I don't know what to say, and I don't know how not to... "belittle" is not the word I'm looking for, it's making someone else's experiences seem, eh, smaller or whatnot by relating it to a similar but less strongly impacting event in my own life. Relating things to other things is sort of the thing I do well, hence why most of my explanations involve a lot of analogies, so that's the natural thing to do for me, and in terms of sad happenstance, it's apparently not the thing to do :( It's not helping that I can tell that I'm not thinking fully straight anymore (yay continued sleep problems), and I'm just worried that I'm going to say something incredibly insensitive (my rather morbid humor is NOT appropriate in this situation) or do something that might upset her. Or, on the other hand, that I may miss the opportunity to do something that could make her feel better when she's going through something so incredibly rough. Thus far she's somewhat just avoided the subject, so I've been trying to follow her lead and not bring it up, but I can't help wondering if I was supposed to send flowers or a sympathy card or something? I don't even know what I'd write in a sympathy card. (Or the card that goes with the flowers.) I wear my heart on my sleeve and am very vocal about the pecking daws that come with that sort of thing, but Kerry's always held her cards close to her chest and I don't have a lot of clues or cues to go on, so maybe I'm to go with what's traditional. Except, yeah, the sympathy card and flowers is more of a distance thing, and I'm here, and I'm supposed to lend support, but I don't know how to do that. And I feel like maybe she wouldn't want my support anyway. I don't know how to be a good friend in this situation, and maybe I don't know how to be a good friend in general, but I've got to take it one step at a time and this is what's in front of me right now :(
I just don't know what to do, or what to say, or where to be.