I keep getting emails from eHarmony. Better and better deals. More and more matches. Emails telling me I might be missing out on finding my soul mate.
And then I look around at my website, my friends’ websites, and I should say something, write something… I have friends… I don’t even know what to say. To say to them, or … to myself, even, or here, about them. ANd I should say something. I care about them and they’re not doing great and they’re facing ongoing health problems and personal tragedy and … And I just don’t know what to say. And everyone else just gives up quick and brief condolences. They offer their ‘sympathy’ and ask if things are okay. Things aren’t okay. Things couldn’t be okay. In fact, every time I hear an update it seems like things aren’t getting any better. More infections, more surgeries, more grief. More loss, more pain. And I don’t know what to say. Nothing I can think of seems … right. Nothing I can think of seems like it would be enough, or would help at all or even … express how I actually feel. I can’t … I’m afraid of even trying to open communication … what is there to say?
This isn’t something I can relate to.
This isn’t within the realm of my experience.
I am not the member of a happy couple, I don’t have a soul mate that stands by me even in my darkest hour. I don’t have someone to try to create a family with, I never have. I don’t have someone who needs me, needs my support and love. I don’t know what it feels like to be loved that way, to love that way. I don’t know what it feels like to have someone … to love someone … in sickness and in health … and know they share that with me. I have never been there. I don’t know what it’s like. I don’t know …
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how I could say anything meaningful to someone who found themselves facing some of the hardest parts, the sickness, the money trouble, the loss and grief and all at once, being in the middle of such pain and never once flinching away, never doubting that they’re with the right partner, that they’re living their lives in love and would never look away… What more could I say to them that her hand in his, his heart in hers… doesn’t already say?
I’m not there with you. I don’t know how you feel, I can’t sympathize, it isn’t possible for me. I can’t say something that will make you feel better. I don’t even know anything that will make you feel better.
Just work through it the way I have faith you will, in love. I know you know this isn’t the end. I know you’re trying to keep an eye on the bright side, and there’s nothing I need to say to make you do that.
I feel useless.
I feel worthless.
I feel bad for their loss, their illness, their pain. And I feel bad for my own inability to sympathize. I feel bad that I’m alone. That I don’t know how they’re getting through this because I’ve never known the union they share. And then, on top of that, I feel bad for feeling bad about my own life in their time of loss and need.
I’m so selfish and inept.
