The Eternal Guest Room

Wow – I was kind of shocked when I found out that I made it onto Mel’s Friday Blog Roundup at stirrup-queens.com. It’s always so amazing and comforting to me to hear that people identify so closely with the thoughts that I write about – and the great irony is that I nearly deleted that post when I woke up the next morning. But I think that’s how it goes, a lot of the time; the things we write that are the most honest are often the things that we wonder “should I have even written/said that?” and they are so often also the things that other people can most closely relate to.

I had a fabulous English professor in college who once said something brilliant; something along the lines of “people always talk about how different we all are, but that’s BS – we are all the same.”

And that stuck with me, because it’s so true. We may not talk about the deep, dark things very often, but when we do, we find that we’re not alone.

I spent most of last year in therapy, and at one appointment, she said something that changed my life. I told her that D didn’t really understand what I was going through, didn’t know the right things to say and do, and wasn’t supportive enough, even though I knew he tried. And she said:

“You can’t find your support in him. He’ll never completely understand what you’re going through. Guys are not the same as girls. You need to seek your support in other women.”

And she was right.

It was a hard thing to let go of – the idea that my husband could be everything I needed, that he could give me all the comfort I required, that he would be the one person that understood how hard it all was – but once I did, my life changed. I sought support on online forums and in real-life support groups and in fellow bloggers, and I found women that really, truly, completely, totally got it. I can speak freely to them, and they won’t judge me. They won’t give me trite catch-phrases that “everything will be ok, it will happen when it’s meant to, you just need to relax and it will happen.” They get it. Totally. Completely.

Of course, I treasure and value the people that are not on this road, the people in my “real life,” that try their hardest to offer support and words of encouragement. They may not always say the “right” thing, but they say the things that mean the world, that they are there for us, that they are thinking of us, even that they are praying for us, even though I haven’t prayed for us in a long, long time. These people and the things that they say mean more to me than I can even begin to express.

But I’ve also found this support network that understands, and that I can talk to. When I get bad news or good news or just feel crummy, I go to them first, because I know they understand. Little things, whereas before I’d be like “who would actually want to know this?” I now know who to tell, and they know what to say. When I first found out my sister had gone into labor, my heart ached, and I thought “who can I talk to? who would understand the way I feel, and not judge me for these feelings?” and the answer came to me: the women who were going through the same thing. And I told them, and they wrote back amazing, supportive things, and it changed my day and warmed my heart. After I picked my heart off of the floor, I posted here, and after that, I went on with life. But first, I went to my support group. And it made all the difference in the world.

I don’t actually know most of the women that I “talk” to. But I know they’re there, and I know they care, and I know they understand.

And that makes all the difference in the world.