How do other people do it?

See, this is the problem with taking a break.  I start to feel a little grumpy, a little undone, a bit incomplete when I’m not writing.  It’s like this morning, I thought, “I’m not writing right now, because I don’t have to.  I’m going to take a nice drive across town to pick up our stacks of mail this morning.  And then I’m going to have a nice walk with this lovely woman who I’d met recently.  How lucky is that?  It’s good not to be writing.  I stayed up last night reading a book.  Ah...how lovely.”

Well, the route I chose to drive must have had every construction site, every car accident, every stalled vehicle there was in the whole entire city.  It took me 2 and 1/2 hours to get to the mailbox and back!  I barely had time to dash inside, complain grouchily to Don.  Like somehow all this bad traffic was his responsibility by proxy.  And if he’d come with me rather than writing like a proper writer in his room, maybe none of these traffic snafus would have happened.  Or even if they had, maybe it would have been more fun with him in the car.  We could have talked, I could have tried to teach him the harmonies to Angels We Have Heard On High.  And yes, I know it’s a Christmas carol, but it takes Don a really long time to get a harmony in his head and keep it there.  I started a couple weeks ago when we were trapped in bad traffic and I figure if I keep this up, maybe we can sing it around the house next Christmas.  (I’m sure this news will thrill the kids...) But he didn’t.  He stayed home and was virtuous.  Pecking away at the keyboard.

Anyway, here’s what my problem is with being stuck in traffic in a car, by myself, for such an extended period of time.  My car is in the shop, so there aren’t all the little treats in this car that I use to bribe myself to stay calm, and cozy in bad traffic.  There aren’t the CD’s that my daughter or one of my friends have mixed for me.  The radio in Don’s car is set to hockey news, and ever since one of my best friends got in a coma and died from a bad traffic accident 5 years ago, I’ve become a more anxious driver than I used to be.  Every car on the road is a potential death trap.  I find I grip the steering wheel way to hard.  So I try to distract myself with thoughts.  But a lot of my thoughts are skittering around with questions, and what next?  And oh-why-did-I-invite-_____ to go for a walk?  What if she thinks she wants to go for a walk with me, but once she does, she’ll wish she never had?  What if she agreed to a walk because she thinks I might be interesting, when I’m actually not.  What if my dog misbehaves?  What if her dog hates my dog?  Why am I so shy? 

It’s so hard when I don’t have the shelter of my children.  That whole, you have kids, I have kids, lets get them together to play.  Or when I was at regular work and then I’d meet people that way.  Now, it’s hard.  I feel so awkward.  What does one say, “Hey, I like you, lets be friends.” I don’t know how to do this.  I have my old friends, but they live all over the world.  I want someone who I can see, talk with, laugh until our bellies are sore.  I want a woman friend who lives close by, where I don’t have to be all confident and together.  Someone who can tell me her sorrow and joys and I can tell mine. 

I was so stressed out by the time I battled my way through the tons of traffic and arrived at home.  Only to get back in the car again and leave, 20 minutes later, so I could get Molly calm on her leash before _____ arrived.  So she wouldn’t think that Molly was the most crazy out-of-control dog she’d ever met.  (Granted, Molly is a little bit...um...exuberant, but one has to take into account her challenging past.) But I got all nervous, because if she thought I had a wacko dog, then she’d think I was wacko too and for sure she wouldn’t want to be my friend. 

Anyway, the walk was lovely.  The dogs were happy.  We talked books and editors and agents and stuff.  And we are the same age, so that’s something else in common.  So, we’ll see.  Maybe in five years from now, I’ll be blogging about my great friend _____ and we can all have a good laugh about how nervous and stressed I got.  Or maybe we won’t become friends.  We’ll just stay nodding, friendly bump-into-each-other-every-five-months-or-so kind of acquaintances.  I don’t know.  Whatever happens is fine.  I don’t know why I felt so small about it.

I’m glad we moved to Vancouver for Will’s school, but I have to admit.  It’s lonely sometimes.  I miss the comfort and coziness of my old friends back on the Island.  Don is all well and lovely and I am so blessed to have him in my life.  But all you women out there, you know what I mean.  It’s a different kind of contentment, female companionship. 

Posted by Meg Tilly on Friday, January 25, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

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