I am not, normally, the person you want to turn to when in crisis.
That person was my friend Deb, the one who died a few years ago. She was the strong one who could give you every single possible solution to your problem, help you handpick the best one, and then hold you tight while you did it.
And then she’d refuse to take any credit while complimenting you on your strength and intelligence in solving the problem.
Seriously.
I tend to lean toward moderately useful. Moderately “there” in the moment. Moderately understanding and moderately patient and, ultimately, I don’t think I’ve ever been very good at helping someone out.
Right now I have a friend who’s in the midst of a serious crisis. The kind of thing that makes me wary to step up at the very same moment that I’m picking up the phone or opening up an Pidgin window. Wary because I am not Deb, nor anything remotely resembling her, and because I fear that my power to make things worse far exceeds my ability to make things better.
But my friend needs me. I’ve been doing my best to be useful and to listen and to think of ideas that might help. I’ve been bouncing ideas off of other friends to get some perspective. I’ve listened to those who have also tried to help my friend to see what works and doesn’t.
I am by no means alone in my attempts to help my friend. This is, perhaps, the only reason that I can put myself out on that “trying to help” limb. Recognizing that I am not doing this by myself and that where I am not-so-skilled, some of our other friends have super powers.
Good friends – a good network of friends – might just be the most valuable thing in the world.
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Deb says you think waaay too much and bounce waaay too little on the trampoline. She would never throw you into something that wasn’t all good. Your friend does not need you to do the things Deb could do for you. She’s pretty good at figuring out the options, even in crisis, and ‘splaining how you can help. You don’t need to worry about that part.
You know you solved the crisis already just by being there, being the first person to come there, bringing fun, music, laughter and the very first pair of eyes and ears to the facts of the story. The rest of it simply involves having a friend to be there when that is called for.
That’s all the crisis has ever been – the need for corroboration and a witness to nod when your friend speaks and to speak when she can’t. She’s been a little burned …. scorched …. that way.
The best thing you’ve done for your friend’s crisis? Is to give her faith in people, to bring joy, love and laughter to her kids and her.
The best thing Deb’s done for your friend’s life? Is to give her the strength to look at the blueprint to bliss she had to set aside for a second and see that it’s a great blueprint, and the idea of synergy behind it is exactly the right one – the synergy just hadn’t really been there. Somewhere in between the cake and the jumping and the server and the kids and the plans, the can you do this and I need that, Deb’s voice was there saying THIS is synergy, that wasn’t but this is, the crisis is fluff, look at what you can do for each OTHER and whoa Mikey would love that trampoline.
So don’t worry, don’t twist yourself into a WWDD knot, it’s you Deb brought and your friend she brought you to. Your friend thinks it was about looking beyond the crisis, seeing how small it really is and how it’s a short hop to the resolution, the best revenge, the happiest ever after, and the many ways you two may be able to help each other have the loudest, last, bestest laughs of all.
See?
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“I am not, normally, the person you want to turn to when in crisis.”
Hey, I am!
I’ll be fine once my health checks out, and I’m pretty sure it’ll all be good once Dr. Howie comes back and yanks this nasty thing out, and I am seen by a medical doctor in possesion of the facts.
Oh! Except I had realized before I got physically ill that I needed to partner with a REAL project manager/admin-type/person who actually can and will do the work I need them to do so we can “make money in our sleep”, as the dead weight I just cut loose said to me. I need to find someone who’s cool with my kids, can accommodate my schedule, or work asynchronously, it doesn’t matter as long as they can let me blather in msn, or ask me questions, or take a hint when I mention some administrative task that will fall by the wayside if they don’t act.
Also, I had planned to hire a kid-friendly “home organizer” to join Kevin, the kids and me in the first week of summer. I still think that is very, very important and I want to find someone and start ASAP. It’s even more important now, to take strong, positive steps to control our environment.
I was hoping you could help me find people to fill both positions? because you’d be good at helping me even come up with job descriptions. Those are pretty specialized people I am looking for. It will be hard to find anyone at all with the right skill set, never mind the right attitude, kid-friendliness, maybe some *nix… I NEED to hire both very soon.
Maybe you even know someone. It’d be great to have someone I know I can trust.
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