The Mirror Friend

Today I had the pleasure of going to see "A Chorus Line" with a dear friend of mine. Her wisdom is deeper than mine. Her heart is more tender. Her vision is more clear. She is my "mirror" friend. Let me explain.

After we parked in the Hobby Center garage, we boarded the elevator to whisk us seven flights to the ground. The show was due to begin in precisely fifteen minutes, and we had to hit up Will Call prior to seating. The elevator was packed. We stood shoulder to shoulder. As it happened, I was in the middle of a little anecdote about a slightly bothersome and very entertaining story about an acquaintance. The tale was neither malicious nor favorable, yet it involved an animated mimic of her mannerisms. Excited to share, I continued talking throughout the elevator ride.

When we evacuated, my friend made a light-hearted comment suggesting that now everyone around us understood the situation I had just recounted. Although I am quite sure my Mirror Friend was not bothered in the least, her powers, her value as my Mirror Friend, suddenly struck.

You see, a Mirror Friend is a teacher. She shows you how to see yourself. She forces you to hear yourself. In this moment, just outside of the elevator, she forced me to face a very ugly truth that I find intolerable: I had not only shared an unfavorable tale about an innocent person, but I had, in doing so, created an unfavorable scene casting myself as the villain.

I realized that although my behavior was neither kind nor entirely rare, other friends hadn't ever shown me how ugly said behavior could be. Despite the fact that my Mirror Friend has no intention of the service she does for me, I am quite sure that she would be proud. I just wonder what value I have to offer her.

How DID Stella get her groove back? And a fantasy.

Don't you just LOVE this picture? It's from Martha Stewart's blog, a picture of her farm. Suddenly I can breathe again. I am on the second story balcony of my country home, a hot cappuccino in my hands, and a wool poncho over my shoulders. I'm just taking it in, inhaling the winter.

SMACK! Olsen (the dog) just snored and snapped me out of it.

On another note, does anyone know how Stella got her groove back? (I'm referring to the dramedy from years ago.) I need to get my groove back, too. Well, I don't think we are defining "groove" quite the same; nevertheless, I need to find mine. Somewhere between holiday parties, celebrations, travels, and vacation days, I seem to have completely lost my routine. When things are "normal" my body seems to mimic the beat of my routines, but I so easily get off track. Hence, I am sitting on the couch blogging instead of...ummm...how about getting dressed and doing some laundry? Don't worry, by about 3pm I'll be ready to go. Unfortunately, that means I will have lost five hours to waste. (Come on, you KNOW things don't really get going until 10am, right? I have to feed everyone, and, um, wake up.)

Hopefully this week will push me towards what used to be and NEEDS to be my routine. I've got a list I need to get around to, ya know?

"The Opposite of Love"

Last night I finished the book called "The Opposite of Love." I thought it was going to be a breezy comedy about a twenty-something woman and her plight to find her way in the world. Instead, it was heavy...perhaps "heavy" isn't the right word, but it certainly struck a painful cord in my heart.

While I never quite bought the narrator's definition for what is the "opposite of love," some of her explanations forced me to understand some of my own compartmentalized sadness. In short, she explained that the reason we sometimes hold back our tears and muffle our pain in times of loss or heartbreak is because we fear that if we begin to cry, we will never stop. There is sometimes no cessation of the losses that we feel, so we are left knowing that no matter how many tears that our eyes leak, there will still be more. We cannot open the floodgates to a flood that we know will drown us.

I share this not to dwell on my own losses, for I am grateful and happy every moment, but to lend this explanation to others that might wonder if their dry eyes reveal a cold heart. No. It is merely a defense to defend against the fear that we might not recover. Then again, we don't. I suppose life is a series of scars and prayers and memories, and the beauty is that we don't ever recover.