She caught the corner of my eye as I slowly rounded the turn, ready to pull out onto a main thoroughfare, watching oncoming traffic. My kids clattering in the backseats so loudly I couldn’t mind my own mind. My hands steady on the steering wheel, purposed and directed to getting home before blood sugar levels reached an all-time low. Dinner beckoned, and I never expected to see her on the intersection of now and then.
My stomach ate my heart. I murmured a quick oh my gosh and then yikes. I closed my eyes hard once, blinking back a sharp surprise tear. An instantaneous flash of the years of our small kids together, that turtle sandpit in her yard, the way her kitchen cupboards didn’t align when they closed, the mornings we perched on barstools and lingered through donuts and coffee while the kids sprawled on the hardwood floors of their quaint home in a quiet neighborhood. The heart-to-hearts.
The burn of a friendship snuffed out.
+ + +
My mind crept back into the crowded vault of memory. The unreturned phone calls, the canceled plans with no reason given. The slow but steady pulling away from me and my open heart, standing there and asking what did I do? and what can I do? I never found out an antecedent to the finitude of my first mom friendship. I didn’t see her again for almost a decade. Until that day we drove past her house and she was out in the yard with a mom friend, kids in hand, waving goodbye at a presumable playdate. I had forgotten it was her street even. A street I had transversed often.
Back when I knew no moms.
Back when I only knew non-moms who worked.
Back when I didn’t know how I fit in, pregnant and working.
Back when she felt like my only friend after our first baby arrived.
My memories beckoned me to re-live the anxiety and sadness and self-doubt of my desirability as a friend. A slow sensation of being not Catholic enough, not attorney enough, not enough of a friend crept up the nape of my neck and settled over my shoulder down on my collarbone.
I decided to decline the invite and instead to drop from my head to my heart.
+ + +
Anxiety over the response to that text or lack thereof. Anxiety over being invited or not being invited. Anxiety over being rejected or anticipating the rejection so much that you’ve already lived it emotionally before it (ever) happens.
I’m naturally an anxious person. Call it having divorced parents at a young age, moving schools every few years, a close childhood friend with whom I had a very fraught friendship (she older, me less interesting, on & off whenever her mood dictated). Or maybe this is just how I am hardwired and would be me regardless of my story, the stories of childhood that I soaked in.
And what should a naturally anxious person do? Go to LAW SCHOOL where you learn to not only anticipate and plan for problems, but become a professional problem solver. That will simultaneously fan the flame of anxiety and give you illusory control over it.
As a very mature adult (guys, I’m 40 on Monday!!), I’m learning just now that the response to my overly analytical tendencies is less head, more heart. (I’m also an advocate for therapy and all the medical advances in the world for assistance!) Less thinking and solving, more pondering and releasing. More trust, less . . . lawyer brain.
And you? Which anxieties large and small consume your one precious life? Is it the response time to a text? Is it upcoming swimsuit season (remember every body is beach body ready)? Is it late-night checking online banking numbers? Is it whether your family will accept your boundaries? Is it the heartache for love, complete and utter acceptance of you as you are?
I don’t pretend to have any answers. I can’t explain why some people appear to “have it all” and others are experiencing being overlooked and under-loved. Why she has a cancer diagnosis and she has a miracle pregnancy. I only know this: our head will never deliver what our heart truly desires: freedom from anxiety.
As a dear friend reminded me, Nell, stop overthinking and just ponder! PONDER! I encourage you to take your anxieties to the quiet pondering part of your heart. Lay them out before the gentle lub-dub beats. Invite Jesus to enter in. What does He say in the quiet whisper? Does He profess His love, His tender delight, His promise that all things can draw you closer to Him, even and especially the worst ones? What freedom awaits you in the soft surrender?
That friend didn’t value me. Your boss might not appreciate you. Your roommates may register as future failed friends. I decided not to re-analyze the hurt caused by rejection, not to enter into questioning of my worth in relationships, not to allow the walls of isolation to creep up again. Instead I pondered and released. I allowed sadness to wash over Jesus and me as we floated in the ocean of His love.
Freedom from anxiety means we won’t necessarily achieve our desired outcome, instead what we desire will shift and sift into something less specific, more a posture of release than a pose of winning. Freedom is simple. Freedom is the gift He longs to give you. What anxiety do you desire freedom from? Tell Him now.
Praying with and for you.
Love,
Nell
ps. I’m serious about the therapy and meds comment. Anxiety often needs assistance so it doesn’t consume us. Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help in staving that off!
Wishing you the happiest birthday, Nell!