Thank you T

This is a post to thank a friend who reached out to us yesterday. I'm going to call him T. 

T and I did our MBA together centuries ago on a different planet. Life went on, and for some of us, brought us to live in the same area. T and his family live close by and over the years we have kept in touch. We've had some great times together. DH and I have always been the partying kinds - we've been known to have a lot of friends over all the time, and our neighbors say they envy our partying and fun times.

So over the last few months, we have sort of receded within ourselves. I know I have consciously been avoiding friends. Not because I don't like them anymore, but because of my own personal situation. It goes like this:

a) Most of them have what I don't - ie, either babies, or toddlers, or fertility.

b) 99.9% of our thoughts are consumed by our infertility and challenges and failures and losses. Therefore our conversations tend to revolve around those topics too. I feel guilty for overwhelming our friends and putting them in awkward situations where they have to step up and react appropriately, while to me, there is no appropriate reaction. 

c) A lot of our friends don't know how to react in front of us. It's like there is this elephant in the room which nobody wants to point out, but everyone knows it's there.

d) I feel we have good memories of our friendships and good times with them, so leave it at that. I don't want awkward situations and conversations leaving behind bitter memories and souring our relationships. 

So - back to the subject of the post. Mr T. He came by last evening, and we had a very open heart to heart conversation of where DH and I are, and how we are becoming reclusive, and how much our friends are worried about us. I never realized that our friends look at our silence as 1) Either we're too depressed and don't know how to handle ourselves anymore, or 2) We don't care enough about them to keep them involved in our lives anymore. That came as news to me and a lot of things that T said made a lot of sense. He told us our friends all care, and hope we're doing ok, but are scared to ask because they don't want to upset us anymore. 

I gave him my blog address and told him that since my thoughts recently have been all dark and dreary, I do not want to smother others with them, but for those that are interested, my thoughts are documented here. 

I thought about our conversation for a long time after that. Any such conversation now leaves me "raw and exposed and rattled" but I felt oddly comforted that people care. It made both DH and me feel loved and wanted. 

So - THANK YOU T. Thanks for reaching out. We are not ready to come out and play yet - we may not be for a while, or may not be forever, but thank you for being there and listening to us rave and rant and vent yesterday. It meant a lot to us.