After two and a half years in Texas

After two and half years in Texas,

I have only four 512 numbers in my phone,

I have never gone to the mall with someone other than my family,

never gone to lunch with someone outside of a group event or business need.

never had someone ask me to go out to a coffee house...and actually show up.

After two and half years in Texas,

I haven't been invited to a birthday party

Or a baby shower

Or a wedding

Or dinner.

After two and a half years in Texas,

Everyone I call a friend is at least 1200 miles away

No one has ever come into my house to see me

And there isn't a single door I could knock on and expect a welcome.

After two and half years in Texas,

I have had dozens of empty "let's get together",

followed by countless broken plans

and a few times not even knowing plans were broken until I showed up...and they didn't.

After two and half years in Texas,

I have been treated as a resource, not a potential friend.

Countless people have asked for advice on websites

And social media and writing...

Dozens have told me about their needs

And struggles

And fears....

Then walked away without caring to hear mine.

After two and half years in Texas,

I have been told at least a thousand times

how wonderful Austin is,

how friendly Texans are,

how great is it to live here.

After two and half years in Texas,

I know your words are empty,

your promises are lies

and your welcomes are meaningless.

And I know that however hot your summers may be,

Deep in the heart of Texas, it's nothing but ice.

When being lonely feels normal, is it time to worry?

A quick browse of my e-mails and blog follows today included a couple of articles that caught my eye.  The first was one on the impact of social isolation on the human brain.  According to researchers, spending too much time without social interaction actually changes brains.  And that change makes it harder for people to even want to meet new people and become less isolated. Which increases isolation and adds to the brain changes. So the problem deepens over time.

As an at-home mom and freelance writer who moved to a new city last year, I can tell you it's true without even looking at the test data.  After over a year spending most days alone, it's become hard to even imagine having friends around.  And just the other day, I announced to my family that I had given up on the idea entirely.  And what's more, I was just fine with that.

"It's just the way it is," I said. "My friends are online and in Florida, not here in Austin. But that's okay. I am fine with not trying to make friends here anymore."

After reading about the research, the scariest part of my statement is that I absolutely meant it.  My daughter is at school all day.  My husband heads to the gym after work, and is seldom home before 7 pm...sometimes later. I spend most days here at home writing and taking care of our home (cooking, laundry, etc.) That has become my normal.

Once in a while, I'll attend an event...a book group or a SEO meeting.  I go to yoga at the gym several times a week, but no one talks to each other there.  And we go to services and Torah (Bible) classes every week. As a family, we often go out to dinner, or take a walk at the Domain or downtown.  But that's about it for me. No actual non-family social time with friends.

But I had no plans to try and change that. The effort it takes to get out and meet people one-on-one and try to make connections seemed like far too much work to be worth it. In fact, I've recently contemplated dumping the mystery book group.  And the number of SEO meetings I actually make it to have been dropping quickly.  I even noticed that the connections I used to maintain online are slipping away.  I just didn't question why.

But now I know why it was so comfortable to decide to give up on the whole friends thing. My brain is morphing. My days, weeks and months alone have changed how I think...and who I am.  That aversion to social invitations?  My feelings of discomfort at networking events?  My loss of interest in chatting with friends online?  It's not just my natural introversion.  It's the impact of the isolation re-wiring my thinking.

The researchers did find that the changes were completely reversible when social interactions increased.  What they didn't answer was how that happens.  If, as they found, new social connections become unappealing, how do you cross that barrier to build them?

And how do you get past just not caring if you do?

Throughts while blogging from the Texas Conference for Women

(My tablet weirded  out yesterday during the conference, so I had to wait until the day after the conference  to publish this! Gotta love technology!)

Right now I'm sitting in the Texas M.I.L.K. bloggers lounge at the conference, catching my breath and taking a minute to think about what I've heard so far.

But before I talk about the "official program", I wanted to mention something I heard two women talking about. It seemed that they had just met at the table. They chatted for a minute or two and then when speaker Gretchen Rubin talked about how important good relationships are to happiness one said...

"I would bet that half of the women in this room are lonely. It's so hard to make friends."

The other woman just nodded, then said "Who has time?"

And there, right there, was my post from yesterday. Here, in a room with nearly 5000 women, loneliness was a real issue.

And in quite a few presentations today, I've heard the same theme.

No time for friends. Seeing people once a month or every six weeks is now counted as good enough. No time for one on one visits, so group activities where you can see a bunch of people is good enough. Women starved for connection.  Women lonely in the midst of lives that leave them with too many tasks and not enough time to breathe. Women who are seldom if ever far from other people, and yet missing the whole category of friends from their lives.

When I wrote that post yesterday, I had no idea my rant would be repeated in a major conference the very next day. But the extent of my experience with this bone-deep loneliness for girlfriends, and the fact that the same theme was repeated over and over again means that it is NOT just me!  It's most of us.  Maybe almost all of us.

So what do we do?  I wish I had an answer!  I wish someone at the conference had an answer. Maybe just getting the reality out there and into our consciousness is the first step. I desperately, passionately hope so.

(Now that I can see this post so far, I see that it's too long to add the conference coverage part, so watch for that is my Thursday post!)

The need to share

Let me say, I am not an eavesdropper. But sometimes you can't help but hear something....

I overheard a man telling another about some sad news he had just received...a member of his extended family had been killed in a car accident.  I wasn't trying to listen, but from where I was sitting, it was impossible to not hear.  After he shared the news, he explained his relationship, shared a couple of memories of the person. The other man listened, and said he was sorry to hear, and that he understood how hard it is to get news like that.  And then they parted.

The whole exchange took maybe 2 minutes.  But it reminded me how very much that kind of sharing is hard-wired into our lives as humans.  For as long as we can go back in history, there have been funeral rites of one kind of another.  And mourning.  And however it's couched in terms of the next world, the fact is the process is really for living.  It's a way to share and to be comforted in that sharing.

Decades ago in our culture, the exchange I overheard would have been unnecessary. People in his community/town/neighborhood would have known the relative.  And they would have gone to him, to express their sympathy.  Odds are, they would have known the relative who died, too, so everyone would have shared their stories and memories.

It's much harder now.  We have to find someone to share with...a coworker, a friend, an acquaintance.  Our blog readers. Or even a stranger, like I did when I started to cry in a restaurant a couple of weeks after my mom passed and the waitress sat down and listened.

I've found myself in that "stranger who listens" role a lot lately.  I've been giving away some furniture using Freecycle, and people are sharing their stories of why they need the items I have to offer.  I haven't asked...but I hear that they need to share, even though we are complete strangers. So I listen, because I can tell that these are stories they need to tell. And I am touched that they are trusting me with these pieces of their lives.

A few years ago, I wrote a post about how isolated we've become, and how most Americans have on average only about 2 people in their lives they can really talk to about important, soul-touching things.
So we share our sorrows -- and our joys -- in little pieces with whomever we find who will listen.

The question is, is it enough?

When we're together again.....

Image that was on the
candy bar favors at our wedding 

As some of you know, my new husband and I have been apart for the past 6 months.  That's a very difficult way to spend most of your first year together, and I won't pretend it's been easy.

But our time apart is drawing to a close, so I can finally allow myself to think about all the little things (and big things) I can't wait to do together again...here are a few, in no particular order...

• Talking about our day, face to face instead of on cell phones that make it hard to hear, and often drop calls at the worst possible moment
• Taking a walk together in the evening, holding hands and looking at the stars
• Cooking dinner together...and eatting together, instead of talking about what each of us had for dinner
• Showing each other an article, a picture, or some other tidbit by saying, "Hey, come look at this!" instead of having to send it and hoping you remember why it mattered by the time they get it 
• Seeing the expressions on each others' faces and the body language instead of having to guess what a tone of voice or a word omitted or chosen means in a late-night-and-we're-so-over-tired phone conversation
• Getting back to learning how to live together, instead of putting that on hold when we had only just started
• Making plans together with friends, rather than each of us trying to keep busy far apart
• Getting into long discussions about our favourite geek-topics without worrying about phone batteries dying
• Good night and good morning kisses
• Spotting that great festival or annual event in the newspaper and go to it together now, instead of making a mental note to do that "next year"
• Having birthday parties and anniversary celebrations and date nights on the calendar, instead of flight times and countdowns
• Seeing a movie together, instead of just talking about it after we each saw it separately
• Laughing together at something silly we see or hear 
• Cuddling on the couch 
• Starting to see plane flights as something WE take to go somewhere, rather than something one of us needs to book to see the other one

...Building a marriage and life together, instead of trying to imagine it while  1,357 miles apart

Sleeping alone, napping with someone you love

To nap with someone is the realization of your inner self. To sleep alone is misery.

-- Moawya

My friend sent me this as a text message yesterday. We are both in the middle of exploring new relationships and trying to find that elusive thing called love. So we talk a lot. Calm each other's fears. Try to sort out what we hope will happen from what is really happening. Give each other support and warnings. And a few times, have even pulled each other from moments of dispair.

But this text message stopped me cold. "Realization of your inner self..." may seem like a lot to put on an ordinary nap. But it's not.

He is right.

When we are small, we nap in the safety of our cribs, our homes, usually with a parent nearby. Sometimes even cradled in the arms of someone who loves us. Safe. Protected. We rest and gain strength and recharge for the next adventures or tests we'll face after our nap. Whether it was an outing to the park or one more try at walking across the vast space that was the living room, after the nap we were ready.

As adults, most of us seldom nap. Unless we're sick, we are far from our beds from the beginning of our day to the end. If we're married or with a partner, we may share that bed at night. If we're single, we may spend our nights alone, or perhaps sometimes with a lover. We make love or read or watch tv in our beds...we are doing. Or it is nighttime and we are sleeping.

But a nap, as an adult, is different from other sleep. It is a return to that safety of infancy. It has no agenda. It's not about sex or night time. It's just about rest and renewal.

To share that moment of innocence and safety with another person is a profound act of trust. It is to admit our fatigue and our needs, and then to awaken in broad daylight again with this person next to us, all our flaws visible, faces bearing the marks of our pillows or our hands, hair messed up, perhaps even clothing rumpled if the nap was unplanned. It is to entrust our sleeping selves to this person who is sharing our bed while the rest of the world runs around outside our window.

It is to steal a moment from the time when adults are supposed to be productive or at least busy and return for just a moment to the freedom of our childhood.

You're right, my friend. I already owe you so many thanks for all our hours on the phone and the wisdom you've shared.

In return, I wish you someone to share a nap with...

Seeing what people are searching for...

I have a statistical program on this blog that lets me see how readers find me. It shows me the search terms people type into Google or Yahoo when they come here because of a search.

It's interesting to note that most people who find me because of searches are searching on the terms Anam Cara (soul friends), Bashert (soul mates), loss of love, or saying goodbye to a friend. These terms seem to resonate with readers across the globe. And I can't help but wonder what this says about us as people.

So why those search terms? I think a few recent studies may hold the answers:

A recent study suggested that most people in the U.S. have about 2.08 people to whom they can talk in a crisis or about matters of deep importance. Putting aside that intriguing partial person that appears in almost all statistical studies (have you ever seen .08 of a person walking around? Why are they and their decimal or fractional twins always in studies but never in our neighborhoods?), that is a very very sad statistic. And many, many people reported they had NO ONE in whom they
could confide. Think about that for a moment...most people have only two people in the entire world with whom they can share the big things in life...the big fears and the big joys, the secret dreams, the "I-just-need-someone-to-talk-to" stuff. And so many are all alone, facing life without a single confidant.

And in another article, I read that calls to help lines and postings on advice and prayer websites are at an all-time high. Although there is no proof of the connection, it certainly appears that people are turning to annonymous voices on the end of a phone or the ultimate annonimity of the internet to take the place of close friends and close family.

So in our loneliness and isolation, we are searching online for advice on how to handle the loss of a love, or how to say good bye to a friend -- because there is no one there in the family or the neighborhood who will listen and share our pain. After all, we meet our dates online. And we join clubs and special interest groups online. Why not search for that elusive "someone who cares" there too?

And we search on the terms soul friends and soul mates in hopes that somewhere out there in the virtual world, there is someone who will tell us exactly how to meet someone who will finally understand us deeply and completely. (There are websites and books that proport to do exactly that, by the way. A step by step wikihow type guide to meeting the people the universe and G-d want us to find. Do we really believe G-d needs instructions to get our soulmate to our door?)

Have we (and by "we" I mean everyone on the planet) reached the point where we have to substitute typed messages and calls to strangers manning phone lines for genuine face to face contact? And most important, can we reverse it?

Midnight at the Beach

Silently, tears fell. The sadness for lost friends, lost love, lost dreams, lost years. For sitting in that beautiful spot all alone. For friends who never showed up. For things that had once seemed a certainty and now certainly will never be....

On Saturday night, I was supposed to meet a friend for tea. We haven't managed to get together since last September, and this was supposed to be a chance to sit down and talk and enjoy a cup of tea on a beautiful evening. He's asked at least a dozen times, but our schedules make get-togethers tough. About a year and half ago, he lost his beloved wife in a car accident, and he needs someone who will still listen to his happy memories of their time together. I listen on the phone, but it's not the same as sitting with someone who knows the story and understands. Finally, we had a night that worked for both of us.

We spoke on the phone at about 8:30. I told him it would be an hour or two until I could get there...I wanted to get my little one to bed, and take care of something for my teenaged daughter. No problem, he said. Just call me when you're on your way. A couple of minutes after 10, I left my apartment. I called his house. No answer. He's probably busy, on another line, away from his phone. I drove towards our meeting place. Fifteen minutes later, I was almost there. I called again. Still, no answer.

I decided to give him a few more minutes. I pulled into the parking lot. Called my daughter to check on her. Chatted for a few minutes. Still no call. I called a third time...no answer. Sent a text. No response. After a dozen requests to get together and at least three times that many calls asking me to come over, I had been stood up.

It was almost 11. I was only a few blocks from the beach. I started my car and headed for the water.

A few minutes and a few coins for the meter later, I was walking on the sand.

At the edge of the water, someone had left a chair...one of those white plastic chairs you see on porches and patios. I slipped off my shoes and headed for the water's edge and that chair. And there I sat, for the next hour. Just me, my thoughts and a chair on a beach.

I was far enough from the beachside restaurants and clubs that the music was reduced to a vague background noise. A few late night fishermen were at the water's edge further down the beach. A brightly lit cruise ship drifted across the horizon.

It was chilly, but I sat there and watched the waves. I thought about love and lost love and life and the future. The tide was coming in, and every once in awhile, the water came up the edge of my chair. I tried to figure out whether having friends who were "no-shows" said something about me or about the friends or maybe about about our society where RVSP's were often overlooked (a complaint I had heard from other moms at school, and two couples planning weddings last year.) It seemed to be happening a lot.

The tide came in a bit more, and the waves got bigger. The water came up to my chair almost every time now. I sat and thought about the fact that twenty minutes, less than a gallon of gas and four quarters for the meter got me a ringside seat at the ocean. I remembered cold nights in my Pennsylvania farm house when such a moment would have been a dream come true. A fantasy I hardly dared contemplate.

The wind picked up, and I curled up in my jacket, wishing I'd worn a sweatshirt instead of a t-shirt. I watched the curl of the waves as they came to shore. And although I was filled with gratitude for that moment, that place, that experience, I cried. Silently, tears fell. The sadness for lost friends, lost love, lost dreams, lost years. For sitting in the beautiful spot all alone. For friends who never showed up. For things that had once seemed a certainty and now certainly will never be.

So much that I keep inside came out there. With no one to explain to, in the blessed darkeness of midnight on the beach, I let the pain pour out until the tears ran dry.

We all keep so much inside. Pain, fear, loneliness. I know I do. I know my friend does. Sometimes, the tears just need to come.

I took a few deep breaths of the salty night air then headed back to my car, and drove home. Emptier. Lighter.

Maybe there is a reason both tears and the sea are made of salt water

After the kids go to sleep -- then what?

Dinner was over, the kitchen was clean, the laundry was done. Both of my girls were sound asleep, and the television was silent. The sound of the dishwasher scrubbing away the remains of the day was the only sound in the apartment. From the open patio door came the whosh of an occasional car passing by.

I turned on the stereo, choosing a station that plays quiet love songs, and sat down to read my new Elizabeth George mystery. At last, after a long day at work, some down time.

But my relaxation was short lived. The songs that played reminded me of lost love and certain-to-come-true dreams that had somehow vanished. I put down the book and let the memories wash over me. People I never see or even talk to anymore filled my thoughts. I pictured some in far-away homes, in far-away cities, some near-by but still out of reach. And suddenly the apartment went from a sancuary of quiet and peace to a prison. I paced from room to room, wandering in and out of the kitchen, living room, dining room, my bedroom and then back again. I picked up my phone and scrolled through the list of contacts, but it was too late to call any of them. I paced some more, wishing there was someone to stay with the girls while I went for a drive. Wishing there was someone to sit with in that quiet, clean apartment with the vanilla candles burning, and the soft music and the tropical evening breeze.

I do okay during the day. Work keeps me busy, and I am surrounded by people and lights and computers and calls from clients. In the evening, I focus on my girls, and making dinner and homework and household chores. On those rare nights when there is something I enjoy on television, I often fall asleep before the timer shuts off the tv.

But on so many nights like last night, when the silence descends, and the music tells stories of love lost and love never found, it's so hard to be alone and inside.

I've been told over and over that I'm supposed to be modern and self-sufficient and not need a man to be happy. But on nights like last night, I can't help but wonder....did the person who made up those rules ever spend her nights alone in a silent, candle-lit apartment?