The Seavers Were Liars

I grew up in a world, a certain faction of LA’s San Fernando Valley {AKA The818}, where there wasn’t a lot of raw truth being served up with the noodle kugel.   I’m not saying my friends and family are a bunch of liars ~ obviously I’m not saying that ~ but when something went amiss in our world, there was a lot more likely to be whispering and hush hush than there was to be talking it out and grand shows of emotional support.   And I thought that was pretty normal.  I didn’t know any different.  I thought that bringing someone a deli platter and not talking about the Elephant in the room was how you dealt with the uncomfortable realities of those not in your immediate family.   “As long as we’ve got each other…” the song goes, right?   So when we’d arrive at our destination, and the arguing and tears would immediately make way for smiles and air kisses ~ I never really thought twice about it.

But then I grew up, and I hit a rough patch.  And, I didn’t know what to do when that happened, because it was supposed to look like everything was okay, right?   So I couldn’t just walk around looking and acting how I was feeling all the time…which was essentially a big massive colossal hole of numbness, failure, and self-loathing.   And when the numbness lifted, there was only panic.   In the morning there was panic.   In the middle of the night it was there.  In meetings.  At dinner parties.   Like my skin had a thousand little centipede legs and at any minute, it was just going to get up and crawl off my body leaving me sitting there, exposed.  Exposed for the waste of life that I was.

And I didn’t tell a soul.

But it’s CRAZY what a year of therapy will do for you, and I’m just simply not living that way any more, and the stresses and pains that seemed unbearable a year ago are just things happening in the background now.  Because as obvious as it sounds when you’re eight, it’s can be just as difficult to practice at twenty eight ~ telling your friend when something is hurting you, it’s just a phenomenal thing.

Sometimes when you do that you learn that that high horse you deluded yourself into believing you were being judged from…well, it’s not a horse at all.   It’s not even that high.   And actually your friends would love nothing more than for you to to come sit beside them and have a chat.  That your friends have private pains and problems too, and when you share them with each other the load of it all just gets easier to bear for everyone.  And now that I’ve started talking, I can’t shut up.  And I can’t stop listening.  And somehow after a year of utter isolation, I’m feeling more friended than ever.    {And I think that’s officially the first time I’ve used the word “friended” in reference to real life.}